Anybody out there learning to facilitate synchronous online classes? In an elegant little course from InSyncTraining in 2009 classmates did some exploring about online/face-to-face differences as a preliminary to learning how to facilitate classes online. I'll buy that technology and distance are key, but some of the discussion I wasn't sure I agreed with.
- Example: Is the following about traditional synchronous online training or face-to-face training?
"Traditional classrooms are characterized by the trainer and participants being in the same place at the same time and involved in the same activities. The trainer uses common tools such as overhead projectors, whiteboards, and flip charts to assist in delivering content."
So: face-to-face or online? The list of media is the key - or is it? "Overhead projectors" and "flip charts" = face-to-face? Change those to "slides" and "screen annotation tools" and the balance shifts toward online? Hmm. Not so sure. I have been watching Eli the Network Guy use whiteboards and traditional classroom tools in YouTube videos recently.
- OK, different example: is the following about a face-to-face or virtual class and does it describe key differences?
"The advantages of the traditional classroom are many. The most important is that most people are comfortable learning in this environment. We don't need to explain to participants how they should interact, behave, and learn. Participants can ask questions immediately. A sense of community can be developed. Participants often appreciate being able to leave their regular workplace and learn in a new setting."
I'm not sure "most people are comfortable" in a face-to-face classroom, and that that is a key difference between face-to-face and online classes. For me, even at my (older adult) age, that could be said of both online and face-to-face classes. That is, I am comfortable in online and face-to-face environments. My first synchronous online experience was a decade ago. After a little orientation to the backbone media environment (my computer as a client on the virtual media, coordinated with whatever system is used for audio) and the new versions of the minor tools (e.g.,electronic version of a marker and hand-raising), I'm good. Thanks to many lessons learned and good technical support, online classes are about as reliable as face-to-face ones. The biggest barrier is getting my computer to work with the Internet that particular day, with my local hardware and software (after the latest automatic update) and with whatever server and software system is used for the online class (after latest updates).
I have actually been more uncomfortable in face-to-face classes lately than online classes. Accessing face-to-face classes has its problems: last-minute room reassignments make finding classrooms for the first class of a course pretty challenging. Fighting through crowded hallways and columns of determined people using the "out" door to charge in from the rain - not fun. Transportation or parking could add to that when class was held on a remote campus miles away. Teachers are who they are: styles and levels of dedication vary significantly. Online classes are often recorded and can be replayed if something is not clear. I have had more challenging face-to-face class experiences than online - but I have so far been able to avoid the local IVT audio blowouts. Asynchronous web-based online has been less problematic and more comfortable for me than synchronous online and face-to-face classroom.
I'm also not sure that face-to-face differs from online in that in face-to-face classes "we don't need to explain to participants how they should interact, behave, and learn."
If it really were the case that we came to face-to-face classrooms with a common set of expectations and behaviors, then instructor training for the face-to-face classroom would not have to stress having clear ground rules and procedures. The Wongs' book "The First Days of School" (http://www.amazon.com/The-First-Days-School-Effective/product-reviews/0976423316/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1) would sell fewer copies. Learners would never have difficulties with instructors' presentation style. Face-to-face classroom expectations are significantly different as a student transitions from a pre-school to kindergarten to grade school to middle school to high school to college to graduate school to technical refreshers or compliance training. At each jump the students have to re-learn classroom behavior. Community college - vast, vast differences in students' backgrounds and aims.
"Participants can ask questions immediately." Not sure that's a valid extrapolation of online/face-to-face differences, either. I have never been in an online course where I couldn't ask questions somehow immediately. "Good practice" for an online course is to start on time and provide a way for students to signal issues at the get-go. "Best practice" is to have a co-teacher or technical assistant in an online session - to proactively troubleshoot any issues. A technical sidekick would have helped in many face-to-face classrooms that I have been in, as well. In fact, they were there (instructional assistants, parent volunteers, student assistants, or graduate assistants).
I would agree that whatever we have in the way of conventions can transfer to or be approximated in the online classroom - usually the online classroom borrows from a "traditional" face-to-face one, and exists within the same educational-administrational framework. Both are classrooms - learning events. There's an extensive exploration of online versus in-person in Susan Smith Nash's (2009) "Elearner Survival Guide" subtitled "Everything You Need to Know to Survive in the Wild and Woolly World of Mobile Learning, E-learning, and Hybrid College, K-12 and Career Courses" at: http://elearnqueen.blogspot.com/2009/07/e-learner-survival-guide-free-download.html Her book is mostly an affirmation of what can be carried over to the various venues in which people are not in the same physical room. The rest is observations on how life itself is currently patterned, in order to be able to then explain how to succeed with the various online backbone and auxiliary online media.
In my own experience, writing and informational/data-dump/survey-type classes translate well to online. Those are traditionally done by lecture, and lecture is easy to replicate online. Motor skills, troubleshooting and team activities, not so much. Why? While practice mostly works out once a new technique is understood, literal hands-on exploration and in-person feedback for a new technique is better up front and for the initial practice attempts. Distance (physical and technological) hampers that feedback. After you have "got it down," drill is fine. Team activities often require in-person communication for clarity. Even with video, that's a challenge.
There were a lot of good tips about the quirks and pitfalls of being an online instructor and opportunities for trying out online teaching in the InSync Training course, but the exploration of "traditional classroom" was sometimes off the mark. I think I would argue that the main difference between online and face-to-face is just that people aren't literally in the same room when a class is online. Everything else derives from that, and varies with the communication tool you are using.
