An article in the Washington Post reports on the growing interest in online publication of class materials and videoed lectures.
“Studying on YouTube won’t get you a college degree, but many universities are using technology to offer online classes and open up archives. Sure, some schools have been charging for distance-learning classes for a long time, but this is different: These classes are free. At a time when many top schools are expensive and difficult to get into, some say it’s a return to the broader mission of higher education: to offer knowledge to everyone.”
In my opinion, the widespread availability of distance education is by far the most important development in postsecondary education in recent years. The article above is specifically referring to classes that are being offered online without cost; MIT has been an important part of this effort with their Open Courseware initiative.
But free videos and class materials are only one part of the story. The bigger story is growing comfort and experience with distance learning in the wider population. Distance learning is breaking out and you will be seeing much more of it in the future.
The Harvard Extension School has been offering online classes for degree credit (and charging tuition) for some time now. In the September 18, 1997 issue of the Harvard University Gazette, a graduate level class, CSCI E-131B: Communication Protocols and Internet Architectures, was first offered online. What made this specific class interesting was that the entire class (including lecture video) was streamed over the Internet:
“Weekly lectures from the course will be recorded and made available to enrolled students over the Internet using new Internet video technology. The lectures can be seen on demand by using an Internet Web browser. Additional multimedia and Internet Web technology will be used to interact with the professor and for working on exams, class projects, and homework assignments.”
Attending Class
When I first started thinking about finishing my Bachelors degree, a key problem I had was juggling class times with work. Attending class is inherently a synchronous event: everyone meets at the same time and place to receive the lecture and ask questions. In the case of undergraduate classes primarily targeted at 18-22 year olds, those classes are held during the day. If you happen to work during the day, you face an immediate scheduling problem.
Online education helps with this problem. In my particular case, I “attend” most of my classes via the Internet. Here is how it works at Harvard:
- A “live” lecture given on-campus is videoed. A few days later, after some minor editing and conversion to web-friendly streaming formats, the class is available for streaming at a password-protected website.
- I mostly watch the lectures in the evening after work. If I have difficulty with a particular topic or want to review, I can replay only that section of the lecture within my browser.
- If I have questions, I can email (or phone in some instances) a Teaching Fellow who will respond with an answer (or a hint).
- Homework submissions are via fax or emailed files. In some classes, a website drop-box is set up to upload assignments.
- Graded assignments are emailed or snail-mailed back.
You’ll notice that nowhere do I mention working with other classmates. That’s the way it is: in distance ed, there is VERY LITTLE interaction with the other students. Consequently, you have no one to lean on or work with who is as unfamiliar with the material as you are. In some cases, web forums are set up to facilitate interaction between students and faculty but in my experience, very little participation is the norm. In only one class out of three that had forums set up for class participation did I see any substantial effort on the part of the students or the faculty to embrace the medium. Most students just work alone. If they can’t figure it out themselves, they might ask a TF.
Which brings up another aspect of distance ed that is absolutely critical: your professor and TF’s should be comfortable with being reachable via email or phone and providing assistance. In my opinion, no factor is more important than good support from the TF’s. If you have a bad TF in a distance ed class, your time will be much more difficult. An on-campus student can pin a TF down in person to get an answer to a question. Emails are too easy to ignore. Timely responses to emails are essential.
I like to test my TF’s early in the class for their responsiveness. Way before the drop deadline, I’ll email an innocuous question to see how long they take to respond and how complete the response is. If the response is too short or delayed by a few days, that’s a bad sign. I’ve dropped two courses (and delayed my ultimate graduation date) because TF’s were either unable or unwilling to provide timely answers to emailed questions. In one case, before a big paper was due, my TF took off on a several week long trip to India where she would be unable to answer emails!
Exams
You might be wondering now how exams are handled. At Harvard Extension, they approve proctors that students locate and coax into monitoring their exams. In my case, the proctor that I’ve used the most often is a student counselor for the local high school system. She’s attached to the adult education division and typically deals with adults who dropped out of high-school or are returning to high-school in adulthood for some other reason.
Don’t let that put you off. While it may seem incongruous to take your final exam at Harvard in a place most often seen by dropouts, the whole process is pretty straightforward. The send her the materials via email and she holds them until I arrive. She puts me in a room where I can work undisturbed and then faxes my exam back when I’m done.
In some classes, there are no exams, just papers. Those are handled like any other assignment.
Commuting to Campus and “Sitting In” on a Class
At Harvard Extension, there are three types of classes: on-campus only, online-only, and on-campus with online availability.
The on-campus classes are like any other: you show up at the required time for a specific class. Most of the classes at HES are like this.
Some portion of the on-campus classes are videoed for the distance students. In this case, if you can’t make a class in-person, you can always watch the lecture online later.
Online-only classes are a special case: most of them are videoed lectures of the traditional classes offered to the undergraduates and graduate students of the other Harvard Schools (namely, Harvard College and Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences). In a sense, if you are enrolled in these classes, you are “taking” a class at Harvard alongside all of the wunderkind that got in. I’ve taken several of these types of classes and I can’t say that I find them to be much different from the other classes that are offered as on-campus with online option via HES. You might feel differently.
In either case, the online-only distinction is because they don’t want to mix the “extension” students with the “regular” students who had to apply for admission to these prestigious schools. Professors sometimes bend this rule if you ask nicely. I’ve been able to “visit” with the regular students in a Graduate CS class at Harvard even though I wasn’t an admitted student in the GSAS. The rumor is that the CS professors are pretty liberal with HES students sitting in.
Which brings up an interesting point: if the class is the same, the material is the same, and the grading is the same, isn’t taking a FAS or College course online like being at Harvard?
Yes and no. It’s the same and it’s different.
Online education: What You Gain and What You Lose
Remember the part where I mentioned that you have little to no interaction with your fellow students?
That’s the difference.
In my opinion, a big part of the learning environment is interaction with fellow students. Once you take that away, you really modify the experience.
It’s certainly possible to learn course material over the Internet and excel at it. I’m doing well in all of the classes that I’ve taken so far and the vast majority of them have been via the Internet. Yet as crazy as it may seem, I find myself longing to join the other students in the classroom and discuss the topic. Several times a year I arrange to “visit” with my professors during the term even though I live in another city. The exercise is very useful. I highly recommend this hybrid approach if distance learning is something you think you might want to try.
I make an appointment with the professor and after sitting for the class, I have a separate appointment with the prof or TF. You only need to do this one or two times to really get a lot of value out of the experience. A vacation day isn’t too much to give up where your education is concerned and you’ll find that your educational experience will be much richer for it.
Harvard Extension already makes this a mandatory aspect of their degree programs. In the case of the ALB, students must take 16 credits of on-campus only classes at a minimum. For the ALM, a minimum of one semester of residency is required to complete the program. It might seem counterintuitive to require class attendance when online education makes up the bulk of the instruction but I find that mixing the two approaches provides a “mutliplier effect” for the experience.
I don’t think it will be long before the distinction between on-campus and online ed will be moot. Both approaches in combination can solve a great deal of the problems associated with cost and time constraints that hinder the efforts of those pursuing higher education. That’s certainly been my experience. Without the flexibility provided by the online option, I wouldn’t be able to complete the bachelors. But having the option to join the events on-campus as I’m able fills in the gaps that are left by strictly online programs.
