Live chat is the "classroom" part of class. At CTU the instructor has an audio feed that the rest of the students can listen to and all participants (students and instructor) have text-chat capabilities. The client was created with Macromedia Flash and has some multimedia features like the whiteboard that allows the instructor to draw figures on the screen. Control can also be passed to one or more students so they can draw as well. All of the sessions are recorded so students that could not attend the live session can review the content later. I am not sure if the whiteboards are recorded or saved or anything since they don't get used very much and I usually attend class pretty well so I don't need to review the content much.
I mentioned in Part II that this would be a lot more fun. I was really trying to say that the Live Class Chats were pretty fun but even this is not entirely accurate since it depends a lot on the instructor. Naturally, if the professor has a dull monotone voice and reads from the textbook, things are not going to be very exciting. On the other hand, if he starts out the class by playing the classic "Let's get ready to RUUUMBLLLLLLEEE" audio clip then the chances are good that the class will be a blast.
In my opinion, the best instructors guide the discussion more than they dominate it. Obviously, Algebra is not a very controversial subject so there is not a lot of room for debate but topics like software development (including design and programming) and network engineering can certainly stir up some religious fervor. Good facilitators present ideas that the students can use as a springboard for further discussion and they ask questions that lead students to discuss together. During the discussion, the instructor may offer help if the group is stuck on something or may present an angle that the students did not think of on their own. There are times when even the greatest instructors have to lecture though but even they allow the students to interject different ideas or alternatives. Sometimes the student is wrong but that is all part of the learning process.
I have not had any really bad instructors and I hope it stays that way. There have been some that were a bit less than average though and I would like to discuss some traits that instructors need to have so that if any other online professors see this then they might learn from us.
Know Your ToolsPlease learn how to use your equipment and the software tools. I have seen (well, heard) instructors that could not adjust their microphones so that certain noises caused blasts of static on the students' end. It wouldn't hurt to have tested the microphone and the audio settings and learn how to adjust it so that the static could be avoided and if the problem was with the hardware then it should have been replaced. (The static lasted about all session – six weeks!) I don't know if this was a training issue or something but there was another professor that seemed to have a lot of trouble using the chat tools. This teacher avoided the use of the whiteboard due to lack of knowledge about the controls.
Leverage Student ExperienceMany students in the online environment are already working in a field related to the degree they are pursuing. I am a software developer and have been working professionally in software development for over ten years. The main reason I attend classes is to provide alternate viewpoints and help out other students that might be new to programming. If there are people attending the chats that really don't need to be, chances are they are there to help. Take advantage of this! One way to do this is to encourage us to contradict you. This spurs us to present different angles on the topic and can really get a good dialog going in the class. Another thing to do is to ask controversial questions in the class and let the students debate the issue. The more experienced students will take the lead at first but the others will join in pretty quickly. Students are more likely to ask useful questions of other students, their peers, rather than the instructor; if there is a good class-time debate then the instructor really has some material to work with towards guiding us in the right direction.
I am not trying to say that we should get together in the chat room and party like its
IRC or something but if the students enjoy meeting they will show up more often and the entire learning experience will be better for it.
