IDEAS FOR EFFECTIVE ONLINE INSTRUCTION
N O V E M B E R
2 0 1 2
V O L U M E
1 2 ,
N U M B E R
1 1
Selecting the Appropriate Communication Tools
By Rob Kelly
When designing an online course it's
important to carefully consider which
tools align with the course's learning
objectives and the types of
communication that will occur.
There are three types of communication that can occur in an online
course—one to one, one to many,
and many to many. In an interview
with Online Classroom, Sara
Ombres, faculty development
instructor, and Anna Reese, production coordinator/instructional
designer, both at Embry-Riddle
Aeronautical University's Worldwide
Campus, talked about how they help
instructors select communication
tools to suit the situation.
One to one: journals
A key strength of online learning
is the ability to create learning communities, facilitate collaboration,
and foster peer review. However,
there are instances where one-toone communication is appropriate.
For example, a journal that only the
individual student and instructor
can access can be used as a way for
students to reflect on sensitive
topics in a less public way than
using other tools might offer. Or in a
writing course, perhaps students
would prefer not to share their work
with the entire class until they've
made revisions.
In addition to being useful to the
students, one-to-one communication
can provide valuable information to
the instructor.
"We have students' journal about
what they're struggling with—things
they may not feel comfortable
sharing with the group. It's really
good feedback for us as faculty
developers and instructors to modify
and improve [our instruction] to
better meet their needs," Ombres
says.
One to many: blogs
Consider using blogs as a way to
provide students with a means to
communicate to the entire class.
Although blogs can be set up to
enable comments from other
students, they're not the best tool
for interactive discussion. Rather,
they are an excellent way for individual students to share their
personal experiences, reflect, and
apply what they've learned, Reese
says.
Blogs provide a sense of
ownership. "Students can comment
on other students' blogs, but they
cannot add posts to other students'
CONTINUED ON PAGE 3 >>
4oYears
< <
F R O M
P A G E
1
blogs. The blog is the individual
student's to do what he or she
wants to do. And there has been a
lot of research about when students
have that feeling of ownership it
really does improve their writing
and their level of commitment,"
Ombres says.
Blogs also enable the instructor
to clearly see the contributions and
are good for tracking students'
learning throughout a course or
even a program.
"If you're asking the same
questions every week, you may find
that a blog is more conducive to
success than a discussion board
because then you're really able to
see the individual student's work.
You see all their reflections through
the whole course. You have all of
that one student's posts on one
page, and it really allows the
students to see their own growth
and progression. ... It's one to
many. Anybody can see it, but it's
organized by student rather than by
topic," Ombres says.
Each student enrolled in EmbryRiddle's master's-level leadership
program keeps a blog throughout
the program. "They're supposed to
try to correlate what they just
learned in that module with
something that's going on in their
professional careers or something
they experienced in the past. By the
time they get through this leadership program, they're going to be
able to go through this blog and see
how their views changed during the
program," Reese says.
Many to many: discussion boards,
wikis
The discussion board often is the
default communication tool. There
are good reasons for this.
Discussion boards are easy to use
and give everybody the opportunity
to contribute. The key to using discussion boards effectively is asking
O N L I N E
C L @ S S R O O M
the right type of questions. "I
always recommend that if you can,
have students relate [the question]
to their personal experiences.
Having them bring in their own
experiences is a very quick and easy
way to elevate the discussion board,
and that's what really gets the
students engaged in participating in
the forum," Ombres says.
The discussion board is best
suited for many-to-many communication where there is not a single
answer to a question or problem.
Prompts are typically in the form of
open-ended questions, but they
don't need to be. Students can
respond to any content—a picture,
an audio file, a video, etc.
"Some [prompts] lead to really
good discussions, and there are
some that are just more reflective
questions that students think about
on their own rather than sharing
their opinions and counteracting
others' posts. I think [discussion
boards] are most appropriate when
you want students to learn from
each other," Ombres says.
Discussion boards are often
informal, but you also can make
them more formal in order to suit
the goals of the course. For
example, you can require students
to include three resources in their
posts, taking advantage of the asynchronous format by encouraging
students to formulate well-informed
posts, Ombres says.
Discussion boards can be used
for debates and simulations. For
example, an aviation law course
uses the discussion board for simulating court cases, in which
students take turns playing the role
of plaintiff, defendant, and judge.
The plaintiff and defendant each
have a week to come up with a case
brief and present it to the judge,
who posts it on the discussion
board for the entire class to debate
for a week. The parties then have
an opportunity to defend their
cases, and after a week the judge
makes a ruling.
Wikis also can be used for manyto-many communication, typically
for collaborative projects.
"If you're asking a group of
students to share their experiences
related to topic X, that would be
more appropriate for a discussion
board. But if you're telling a group
of students to create a paper that
explains a theory that was
discussed in class, then I would use
a wiki," Ombres says.
Many online courses at EmbryRiddle feature group projects in
which students work together in
groups of three or four to create
some kind of deliverable—a presentation or paper that they create as a
group. Ombres says that wikis have
been the best way for students to
work on these projects because
wikis enable students to work on a
single file without having to worry
about whether it's the current
version. A major difference between
a wiki and a discussion board is
that a wiki does not really differentiate between individual students'
contributions the way discussion
boards do. However, wikis do enable
the instructor to view individuals'
contributions, which helps when
assigning grades.
A n i m po rt an t co n si d e r at io n
Learning outcomes should be the
overriding consideration when
selecting and using communication
tools, Reese says. "It doesn't matter
how flashy the tool is or how excited
you are to use it if it's not the right
tool for the job. It's important to
design with your learning outcomes
in mind, figure out what you want
your end result to be, and then
choose the tool that will help you
get there versus picking the tool
that you really want to use and
then trying to model your course or
learning outcomes around that."