Online learning, student engagement, and transmedia education

[AlexReid]

I'm going to pull in a couple different pieces of information here, including material from this week's Jenkins reading, and connect back to our discussion thread on education and social media.

First, a new report was issued this week from the National Survey of Student Engagement. You can read the full report at http://nsse.iub.edu/NSSE_2008_Results/. The entire report is about 20 pages and is an easy read. I'd be interested in your thoughts on it. Part of the report deals with online learning, where the survey concludes

Controlling for student and institutional characteristics, the percent of first year courses primarily delivered online was positively related to active and collaborative learning. Though this result seems counterintuitive, the online setting may offer more opportunities for collaboration and faculty who teach online courses may be more intentional about fostering active learning experiences, such as asking questions or participating in discussions. For both first-year students and seniors, the percent of courses delivered primarily online was significantly related to level of academic challenge. Online courses seem to stimulate more intellectual challenge and educational gains. This suggests that integrating technology-enhanced courses into the curriculum for all students might have some salutary benefits. On the other hand, it is also possible that faculty who are incorporating new technologies are inherently more inclined to provide engaging experiences for their students, regardless of how content is delivered.

The evidence would seem to suggest that at the very least online courses are at least as effective if not better than FTF courses in terms of engaging students (at least in the ways this survey examined). I would note that SUNY Cortland was one of many schools that participated in this survey. I haven't seen what our particular results were. I want to avoid looking like I am trying to fish for compliments here, but I am curious about your general experience with online courses. Please note no one is suggesting that ALL courses should be taught online or that FTF classes do not also have benefits. The question instead is: are there particular benefits, specifically in terms of "student engagement," that should lead us to consider whether online courses or significant online components of courses should be part of every student's college experience?

In thinking about how that might function, I want to turn to Jenkins' discussion of transmedia storytelling, which is the focus of chapter three. Jenkins defines transmedia storytelling as "the art of world making. To fully experience any fictional world, consumers must assume the role of hunters and gatherers, chasing down bits of the story across media channels, comparing notes with each other via online discussion groups, and collaborating to ensure that everyone who invests time and effort will come away with a richer entertainment experience" (21). Jenkins uses the example of how the Matrix story is told through major release movies, video games, a DVD of animated shorts, and comics. The vast majority of consumers who engaged with the Matrix world probably only saw the Hollywood movies. They were able to enjoy the world on that level, but there was more out there for fans who wanted a richer experience.

Now try to turn that thinking toward the classroom, especially in light of what we said in our earlier discussion about the importance of students taking a more active role in their learning. In this class, you can complete the assigned readings, respond as required on the class discussion, turn in your assignments, and get a complete experience that would be analogous to watching the primary Matrix movies. But there is a far deeper level of engagement and rich media to encounter.

• videos the have been posted
• podcasts uploaded to iTunesU
• many wiki pages
• your classmates' blogs in Ning
• many links to web resources
• Second Life and the social media sites you investigated
• continuing discussions here

Of course you are not required to do engage with all these things. And likely there is no one, including me, that will see every single piece of content produced in this course. That rich world is out there for every course you might take in the sense that there is always more to read. I would think that the broader world is a little more accessible here. And here you might have more opportunity to participate in creating that broader context for the course.

The flip side, as many of you have reported, is the challenge that places on you as a learner. Jenkins notes that transmedia storytelling asks consumers to be "hunters and gatherers." Consumers, and I think students, are more used to being waited upon. They expect the content to be brought to their table. After all, that's the way it has conventionally worked in the classroom. As a hunter-gatherer you can never be sure that you have found all the resources. In fact, you can be fairly certain that you haven't. You also can never know if you've found the richest sites (the best fishing hole, the most plentiful berry patch). Collaboration helps here, as hunter-gatherers know. But maybe more importantly, the lesson you learn is about how to hunt and gather information. That's more valuable than getting "all" of the content for a course, which is only ever part of a larger body of information anyway.

[Michelle Cilip]

I will be honest, in all my time spent in college (and I’m on the 7 year plan!), I’ve taken so many online courses that I can’t even count. I took probably a good 2 years worth of online classes at a community college a few years back, and I was very guilty of expecting things to be handed to me; however, in my case, I expected a good grade to be handed to me. And every single time, it was. I took a math class online, the same one I had taken F2F and gotten a D in, and the online course got me an easy A. Side note: this particular online course, as with others, didn’t allow all tests to be taken online; the school had a testing center that you had to take the test in to avoid cheating. But I think that the teachers were more lax with their grading because, in a lot of cases, teachers will teach an online class as a way to pick up extra money and not invest a lot of time. I only say this because a teacher of mine admitted to this, and she said it was an easy way to teach full-time, plus get extra money from teaching online, but only have to invest her time in the F2F classes. At the time I thought this was wonderful because I just wanted my good grade, and I too didn’t want to have to do a lot of work. None of that happened at Cortland though, and I find the online classes here to be harder, and they force you to be engaged more.

One reason I may see Cortland online courses differently too is that I’ve grown up a bit, and my primary motive is to learn… and earn my grade, regardless. On top of that, I spend a good chunk of my time commuting to school, and online classes save me time and a lot of money, and I’d be pretty mad if they weren’t worth my tuition dollars (so far, they are though). I like the ability to go home to my parents’ house, though, and be able to still participate in school from there, and if I need a week or two off, as I did this semester, it’s easier to duck out unnoticed (or less noticed).

So I think that online courses are only as effective and rewarding as you make them. If you are only in them to sail through and get by, enough to get a good grade, you probably will… but that can also be true for F2F as well. But if you really do put forth the effort to participate, or at least follow along and stay up to speed, then yeah, you’ll probably actually learn in the process. And you get a lot more experience with hunting and gathering of information. I personally learned an awful lot trying to figure out how to upload podcasts on a PC as opposed to a MAC. But you also learn that independence, and you learn how to solve a problem on your own when no one else is around to give you the answer, and you get such an overwhelming sense of satisfaction when you get on iTunes, see your name, and think, yeah I did that! And being sort of free to learn this all on your own, if you really can’t figure something out, you learn what I think is one of the most important and humbling things in life to learn: how to ask for help!

[AlexReid]

You make a good point about the problem with some online classes. It is maybe easier for a teacher to get away with doing less. After all, hypothetically, I could set up a series of video lectures on these readings and some pre-made writing prompts and then just essentially leave you guys alone in here. From a different perspective an online course could be more work. I mean there is a ton of writing from all of you that I could respond to. Obviously I can't respond to each individual post. Instead I have to think of this as a conversation that I can participate in.

I also appreciated your point about learning on your own. I think this is crucial with technological literacy. Even if I did hold everyone's hands through each technical hurdle, that wouldn't have helped you all much. Yes, it would have made these particular assignments easier, but technology evolves so quickly that what you would have learned from that experience wouldn't have helped you much down the road. The important thing you need to learn to be technologically literate is that you are able to figure these things out on your own.

[Lauren]

I totally agree with the notion that consumers, including students, are more prone to avoid being "hunters and gatherers" especially when it comes to the online world, and online classes. I believe there is a certain type of student that enjoys the act of hunting and gathering for information on the web to go out and then share with their classmates in the virtual world. I also believe that most students innately enjoy the act of walking or driving to class, to see their fellow classmates sitting around them with the teacher taking direction up in the front. I believe that many students enjoy this experience of actually making the effort to go to class simply because it is all they have ever known. Being in an online class it seems that collaboration is key, but collaboration is often not stressed at all in regular classes. Everything depends on the individual usually. You follow the syllabus, you attend class, you try to do well on exams, and everything else should come fairly easily. The online atmosphere is different because of the hunters and gatherers portion of it.. You are given more independence to go out and find information for yourself without the teacher giving everything to you. You are required to give a little bit more of yourself and your personal beliefs. And in the end, you should learn a great deal about not only the information you have found and acquired over time, but also how to go out and seek useful information on the web.

I think this independence on research that is so clearly given in an online class is something that should be required for a student to engage in. Through this class I most definitely learned things about Podcasts, and Second Life, and the collaborative process of a Wiki, and I can go on and on. These are aspects to the web and technology in general that I think a lot of students are totally unaware of, and should have some sort of knowledge of before heading out into the workforce-no matter what job they hope to get.

[Ed Blackford]

Online classes to me are harder than regular FTF classes. They take more...maturity i guess you would say because it is very easy to procrastinate. Nobody is on you and you don't feel as bad when you don't do your work. Other than that I think online classes are excellent. I am taking an independent study with van der Veur and it is basically an online class. I watch tutorials and learn how to use Adobe After Effects on my own. I think computer related classes work very well online which is why I think it was very smart of Mr. Reid to incorporate computer/technology related content into the course.

I agree with some of the students who said that Science classes would be hard to teach online. I was a Bio major and even the lectures were really hard. It would be super super hard to take a college level science online because a lot of it is hands on.

[Isaac Wheeler]

I think you have to be motivated to take an online class because I also agree that students "expect the content to be brought to the table." I have had professors that just lecture and students copy down notes and tests are based upon the notes. This method is really teaching students how to memorize information and not fully grasp concepts. The students are not being the "hunters and gatherers" in this situation. Online classes give each student a chance to respond to discussions that may otherwise not happen with a full classroom of students. There are more time restraints in the classroom and people may feel more comfortable giving their thoughts an opinions in an online class. I think eventually degrees that are fully online will become more accepted and are getting more popular. Taking classes online give people more flexibility and this is something that I like.

[Vicky]

Until this semester, I have never taken an online course and I decided to take 2 at the same time. It probably wasn't the best idea to take on two at once being that they were my first ever, as the nature of online classes was completely new to me and at times, a bit overwhelming to handle at the same time.

I definitely agree that as students, we are used to being waited upon. Taking these classes really made me realize that. As Professor Reid says, we "expect the content to be brought to [our] table" because that has been the traditional way in classrooms since elementary school. Even in college, which is supposed to be different from high school, where independence and responsibility is key, we almost still rely on our professors to spoon-feed us. They have their expectations and they tell us what we need to/should know. And most professors here take attendance, which really motivates us to go there in the first place. But is that really learning? How much of it really sticks with us beyond the tests and papers?

In an online class, if you're going to get anything out of it, you must be motivated and engaged enough to do it yourself. There is no teacher breathing down your neck or reminding you to hand that paper in. There aren't important dates written on the board. There's no physical demonstration of anything. You must take the responsibility to regularly check the class to see what's going on and further, you must go beyond the class to basically teach yourself and look for information on your own watch, hence "hunting and gathering" analogy.

The thing I had been afraid of most was recording the podcasts, both regular and enhanced. Yes, I watched the tutorial videos, but there was no one there with me to demonstrate or go over the steps I didn't get at first. I had to take it upon myself to get onto the program and keep trying until I got it right. It took me about 3 hours to get the first one done. Talk about trial and error. But sometimes that's what it takes to really get something. Going out there, doing it yourself, messing up, dusting yourself off and trying again until you get it right. But then it really sticks with you because you experienced and taught yourself something first-hand. You went through the trials and tribulations yourself instead of having a professor save you from the whole mess.

"They were able to enjoy the world on that level, but there was more out there for fans who wanted a richer experience," Professor Reid said in reference to the Matrix fans in Jenkins' book, and in the case of education, online classes are the richer experience because that's exactly what must be done in them: get out there and experience the whole picture rather than accept what's simply handed to you.