The University of Calgary’s online learning program is growing rapidly, despite claims from the Canadian Association of University Teachers that online learning actually restricts access to education.
“I think (online learning) improves access,” Dave Leskiw, the U of C’s director of online learning for extension, told Business Edge. “It doesn’t reduce access.”
The U of C already offers, or soon will, online courses in Continuing Education and the degree-granting faculties of social work, medicine, education, communications and culture. Online courses are considered to be any courses delivered electronically.
Leskiw said the U of C’s online learning program is taking off, thanks to new U.S.-based Centra Symposium technology that allows instructors to talk via headsets and view slides, software, a whiteboard and Web sites in live virtual classrooms.
“This term, we have 25 courses that use this technology. We’ve doubled in one term,” said Leskiw, adding the number of online courses will likely double again in the near future.
He made the comments in response to Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) president Tom Booth’s scathing critique of the federal government’s Advisory Committee on Online Learning, which urges universities, colleges and governments to pursue online education more aggressively.
Booth – who did not cite specific sources – claimed research shows that online courses cost more and a “substantial” number of students fail to complete their courses. Meanwhile, low-income groups, minorities and students with a limited education to begin with are less likely to have access to computers or services needed to study online, he said.
“If education to date has been the great equalizer, technology-based education is shaping up to be an engine of inequality,” Booth stated in a recent news release.
But Leskiw said people who can’t afford to have a computer at home can still use terminals in schools and libraries. He said expensive hardware is not required and students can connect to virtual classes with slow 28,800-byte-per-second modems. “So I think it actually increases access, particularly in the rural areas.”
He said many people in a Web developer’s certificate program are from rural areas where they have no access to university-level education. For example, one U of C teacher’s assistant course was delivered to small, isolated Inuit communities in the Northwest Territories which have populations of less than 800 people.
Using his host whiteboard during a demonstration for Business Edge, Leskiw drew circles and diagrams and highlighted text in red, blue and yellow that appeared instantly on another computer. In most cases, other than expensive videoconferencing sessions, the instructor and students can’t see each other during online classes.
(Tiny cameras that would allow everyone to see each other can be installed on top of each computer, but Leskiw said the U of C doesn’t use them because of their small screens and poor video quality.)
Booth, whose group represents 30,000 academic staff, said students who are traditionally excluded from post-secondary education are most dependent on face-to-face interaction and least able to deal with the frustration and isolation of Web-based distance education.
But Leskiw said the new Centra technology — which costs less than $100,000 compared to Web-based technology that costs more than $1 million — is overcoming obstacles that have frustrated students and instructors alike.
“As long as the instructors feel that they’re an integral part of the learning process, suddenly, they’re comfortable again,” said Leskiw. “It’s a virtual classroom. It’s just like a regular classroom. It’s like face-to-face. They’re needed.”
In addition to Centra, online teaching devices include Internet-based communications tools, e-mail, CD-ROM, videotapes and audio conferencing. Leskiw said instructors found text-based online course content “quite insulting” because it removed them from the learning process, but they have been quite receptive to Centra’s multi-media offerings.
“We’ve gone from having 11 instructors that were trained in using Centra in the fall of 2000 to 25,” said Leskiw.
Instructors have no reason to fear for their jobs because they will reach larger markets, he added. “There’s a large piece of the population in rural Alberta that will not go to a university because . . . they don’t have access to it.”
Mike Mattson, the U of C’s chief technology officer for learning technologies and digital media, said teachers have resisted online courses because they’re concerned about their jobs, and they’re afraid that they’ll be forced to teach a course using the exact same materials and methods as everyone else.
One solution, he said, may be to develop portable online documents (for example, a periodic table) that can be adapted for students of all ages and still allow teachers to maintain their individual teaching styles.
The U of C’s Learning Commons, a professional development program, helps instructors develop new media for teaching and learning; it also provides training and consultation in electronic curriculum and individual teaching development services.
“Just putting the technology up there isn’t learning,” said Mattson. “We’re still going to need teachers to explain content, answer questions.”
Continuing Education’s online and in-classroom courses cost exactly the same, ranging from $69-$500 each.
CAUT will likely have a difficult time slowing the pace of online learning in Alberta, because the province is viewed as a national leader in online learning.
According to Quill and Quire, a book trade magazine that probed education in its February issue, Alberta has 4,500 full-time and 2,500 part-time students enrolled in online courses, and the province has 20 online schools.
The Alberta Online Consortium (AOC), which co-ordinates online content development and professional development for schools and post-secondary institutions, counts 13 post-secondary institutions and 57 of the province’s 62 school districts among its members.
“The AOC disagrees with the assertion that the online education is part of a larger trend to undermine public education and ‘de-professionalize’ teachers,” wrote Paulette Hanna in a December 2000 letter to all Alberta teachers.
“On the contrary, we believe that online education strengthens public education and enhances the teaching profession by expanding the tools available to professional teachers to educate all children regardless of their geographic location, or personal or family preferences concerning where and when public education can be offered.”
The AOC, founded in 1998, was originally part of the province’s learning ministry, but is now an independent body.
It is already developing courses in other provinces and is exploring plans to become a national organization. However, constitutional questions will likely arise because education is a provincial jurisdiction.
Mattson predicted all universities will continue to expand online programs, because students will expect at least some course materials to be available on the Internet.
“They grew up with the Web,” said Mattson. “Part of the challenge for the university is to grow with our audience.”
