Confusing the Technical Problems of Technology with...

Last Tuesday, I heard many complaints about training for online classes. The Virtual College and our new classified technology trainer provide fine training on the latest technology. Also there were complaints about various features in blackboard not working. (I have to admit that I enjoyed this portion of complaints.)
Thinking about how we can train faculty in the use of all this new technology, I realized that the problem is not a "How to make the technology work?" but one of "How to present/teach in an impersonal online environment?"
Learning how the technology works is an important aspect, however I would argue that learning how to present the material and assessing students in an online environment is different and the more important question. We as teachers tend to ignore this question. Because of our experience of teaching in person we assume that we know how to do it in an online environment.  When we fail, we want to blame the technology.
We teach in the manner that we learned. Most of the faculty (including myself) were presented the material via lectures and assigned readings. We would read the assigned reading and asked the teacher for clarification. Next came testing with the teacher or his/her TA proctoring us.
We now try to replicate this process in an online environment and we put all of our faith and blame in the latest technological update.
I am sorry but the problem is NOT with the technology.  Many colleagues believe that I am some sort of expert in technology. Bad news I am not an expert but an observant rule breaker that did not like how my teachers tried to put me in a box. During my schooling the most enjoyment I got was from breaking the rules.  I can sit for hours in the computer lab and observe how students interact with the technology and how they try to game the system as I tried to do some 15 years ago. As an example I have noticed that students do not use a traditional computer and/or PC anymore. They are using their phones and mobile devices and some are even taking quizzes on the road. I have seen an email from a student to another online instructor saying "I am sorry I did not finish my exam but I dropped my phone in the car." In my class I have seen students taking a midterm exam for an online class as I lectured. They believe in multitasking which does not work!! This student with his cell phone was listening to me babble about Marginal Productivity and taking a midterm in his online class due in 20 minutes, insisting that he is listening to me. I smiled and wished him good luck.  At 12:00 (noon) he slammed his phone on the desk complaining "that sucks!"  He was timed out! He blamed his phone and blackboard, NOT his lack of planning and procrastination.
This leads to me another pattern I have observed. Students wait till the last minute before attempting an assignment. Again they use their mobile devices to write using 'i' instead of 'I" for the first person pronoun. If they are not kept on a tight regular schedule, they tend to forget that they are registered in your course as other more fun technology pulls them away.

Here are some best practices that I have learned through trial and error.

• The most important aspect of an online class is the Syllabus and Quiz on the Syllabus. 
1. It is important to spell out every thing
2. I have ran two classes side by side. In one class I gave them a quiz on the syllabus and in the other I did not. The class with a syllabus quiz did much better at the end of the semester. There was a high correlation between their score on the syllabus quiz and their final grade in the class. 
• Set up the course with many short assignments.

1. Do NOT rely on a few major assignments, such as major midterms.
2. Do Not let any one assignment be worth more than 10% of their grade. This encourages cheating.  (remember there are no proctors)!!!
3. It is easier for students to hire someone to take major exams and/or major assignments than hiring someone to log into the course on a regular basis to complete various little assignments.
4. With a large number of assignments, it is easier to spot cheating.  As the instructor you can tell there is cheating if you observe their writing style, use of vocabulary change and/or a consistently low scoring student out of no where gets a perfect score.
5. Also low risk assignments lowers the stress level for those students who are overachievers and/or stress cases.
6. If they screw up on any little assignment they are more willing to let it go then a big assignment. Cutting down on emails with excuses!!!

from: http://asccc.org/content/pedagogical-and-other-approaches-toauthenticate-student-identity

• Set up a weekly schedule so they associate a day of the week with your class.

1. My assignments are due on Mondays or Tuesdays.  I send them weekly reminder that Monday or Tuesday is coming up! They know what that means as they have gotten into the habit of running to a computer before the deadline to complete an assignment that they had more than two weeks to complete in 45 minutes.
2. I do not like weekend since the virtual college is not open during the weekend.

• Do not make video lectures longer than 6 minutes. 

1. If you decide to create video lectures, they will NOT watch nor listen to it past the 3 minutes mark. 
2. They will watch or listen to it for Six minutes if there is a quiz and/or discussion associated with it. (The down side of technology is instant gratification and shorter attention span of students)
3. Upload your video to YouTube because Google works on the various mobile technologies that students love to use. (I hope Google comes out with an LMS see my previous posts. 1  2  3 )

An ideas that I will test next semester is to put some sort of warning on my syllabus reminding them it is not safe to take quizzes on their mobile device. Encouraging them to get to complete their assignment on a computer.