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You have decided that you have the money, time and materials to do this. What is next to know? How about the way the class will be held? Not all college online courses are the same at all.

a blended course,

Hopefully, this blended learning environment takes the best from both asynchronous and asynchronous.

  E-Pedagogy: Does e-learning require a new pedagogy?  5 The emergence of e-learning  As part of the technological revolution, the use of e-learning, or blended learning, isincreasing. This is particularly true of Higher Education, which offers most programmespartly or wholly online. In the future, e-learning is likely to be more widely used in thetertiary and school sectors. Another driver for e-learning is life-long learning, whichrequires on-going training and re-training of the adult workforce.In many cases, e-learning is delivered through a virtual learning environment (VLE),which is a custom built environment designed for online learning. VLEs, such as  Blackboard and Moodle , typically provide all of the software tools required for onlinelearning such as communication and file sharing facilities. These environments are oftenmodelled around the traditional campus, providing ‘virtual staff rooms’ and ‘onlinecommon rooms’. E-portfolios provide the digital equivalent to the traditional paperportfolio; these typically provide online storage for a range of media types (such asdrawings, photos and videos). Dedicated e-assessment systems, such as Questionmark ,facilitate large-scale online testing, providing many of the question types that arefamiliar to teachers.Some academics have pointed out the potential of e-learning to improve current practice.Garrison and Anderson (2003) write:“E-learning has significantpotential to alter the nature of theteaching and learning transaction.In fact, it has caused us to face upto some of the current deficienciesof higher education, such as largelecturers, while providing somepossible solutions or ways tomitigate these shortcomings. Seenas part of pedagogical solution, e-learning becomes an opportunity toexamine and live up to the ideals of the educational transactiondescribed previously.” New learning opportunities The changing environment facilitates new kinds of learning. Teachers have traditionallyfocussed on content; indeed, many consider the identification and delivery of learningmaterial to be their prime role. But it has been argued that the traditional skill of contentcreation is redundant in the information-rich learning environment. Some of this contentis very high quality, even world class, and certainly superior to a hurriedly producedhandout of the type often used by busy teachers.It has been suggested that the contemporary teacher should be more “guide on the side”than “sage on the stage”. The ready availability of information makes  facilitation moreimportant than direction . The pedagogic issue is not too little information but too much:the contempora

changing learning landscape poses fundamental epistemological questions about thenature of knowledge and how it is acquired. Dede (2008) writes: “In the Classicalperspective, knowledge consists of accurate interrelationships among facts, based onunbiased research that produces compelling evidence about systematic causes […]Epistemologically, a single right answer is believed to underlie each phenomenon […]The epistemology that leads to validity of knowledge in Web 2.0 media such as Wikipedia  is peer review from people seen, by the community of contributors, as having unbiasedperspectives. Expertise involves understanding disputes in detail and proposingsyntheses that are widely accepted by the community

George Siemens introduced this theory in his paper Connectivism: Learning as networkcreation (2004) to address “the shortcomings of behaviourist, cognivitist andconstructivist ideologies”.Connectivism conceptualises knowledge and learning as a network, consisting of nodesand connections. Knowledge, at any point in time, is a particular (probably temporary)configuration of nodes and connections (a sub-network). Learning creates newconnections between existing nodes (changes to existing knowledge) and/or creates newnodes (entirely new knowledge). Learning, therefore, is about network (node andconnection) creation.His theory differentiates between data, information, knowledge and meaning: •   Data : raw elements •   Information : data with intelligence applied •   Knowledge : information in context and internalised •   Meaning : comprehension of the nuances, value and implications of knowledge.“Learning is the process that occurs when knowledge is transformed into something of meaning.”Connectivism embraces eight principles:1.   Learning and knowledge rest in diversity of opinion.2.   Learning is a process of connecting specialised nodes or information sources.3.   Learning may reside in non-human applicances.4.   Capacity to know is more important that what is currently known.5.   Maintaining connections is needed for continual learning. (function() { var pageParams = {"origHeight": 1276, "origWidth": 902, "fonts": [3, 1, 2, 4, 0], "pageNum": 9}; pageParams.containerElem = document.getElementById("outer_page_9"); pageParams.contentUrl = "http://html2.scribdassets.com/4o2mjijnuo850n3/pages/9-7fefce237b.jsonp"; var page = docManager.addPage(pageParams); })(); Scribd.Ads.addBetweenPageUnit(9);   E-Pedagogy: Does e-learning require a new pedagogy? left: 3830px; top: 276px; color

Using Synchronous Tools to Build Community in the Asynchronous Online Classroom

Synchronous tools can help humanize the classroom.

Setting up open office hours

. Analysis of students' contributions revealed that there is a substantial evidence of collaboration, but that there are differences between conventional face-to-face instances of collaborative learning and what occurs in an asynchronous, networked environment.

require students and instructors to be online at the same time.

specific hour. All students must be online at that specific hour in order to participate.

Asynchronous classes are just the opposite. Instructors provide materials, lectures, tests, and assignments that can be accessed at any time

In the [asynchronous discussions] it is easier to find some more facts, maybe have a look in a book and do more thorough postings.In fact, according to Kock’s estimate,18 an exchange of 600 words requires about 6 minutes for complex group tasks in face-to-face settings, while exchanging the same number of words over e-mail would take approximately one hour.

Almost every sentence in the asynchronous discussions of the smaller group, and a vast majority of sentences in the larger group, were classified as content-related. This is a remarkable result—imagine if learners on campus spent more than 90 percent of their time discussing issues related to course content. These results can also be interpreted as troublesome, however. If e-learners seldom meet face-to-face and teachers mainly rely on asynchronous e-learning, students might feel isolated and not part of learning communities, which is essential for collaboration and learning.15

Almost every sentence in the asynchronous discussions of the smaller group, and a vast majority of sentences in the larger group, were classified as content-related.

This is a remarkable result—imagine if learners on campus spent more than 90 percent of their time discussing issues related to course content

Students are empowered to learn on their own and even to teach one another.

Students served as instructors to their classmates, and together they worked toward learning goals more effectively than if they had been provided with the answer by the instructor.

One online instructor (Alley 1996) has described this changing pedagogical consciousness as an �instructional epiphany�.� Alley tells of a personal transformation, stimulated by online instruction, marked by two "milestones". First, he had to totally redesign his course to fit and leverage the new learning environment. Second, he had to rethink what he calls his �basic approach�: �As long as I held on to the traditional �sage-on-stage� style of teaching, I would keep reinventing ways for students to be a passive audience� (1996:51).� Similar changes in pedagogical belief and practice have been reported by other faculty who have taught web-based courses (Brown 1998; Jaffee 1997; Cremer 1998) as well as researchers who have interviewed online instructors (Frank 2000).�� There are clearly some �structural constraints� built into the virtual classroom ecology that make it difficult to implement traditional modes of delivery and, in this sense, almost force instructors to entertain active learning strategies. As Frank (2000) discovered in her study of online instructors, "All of the participants saw online learning as empowering for students. The most valuable benefits were the facilitation of active learning, critical thinking, collaboration, confidence, and lifelong learning habits. A common theme was the way in which the teacher is forced to give up the control that one has in a face-to-face environment and re-examine the traditional role of content deliverer".� Just as the physical classroom architecture imposes constraints on, and opportunities for, particular pedagogical practices, so too does the virtual classroom. John Seely Brown (2000) has described the environment of the world-wide-web as a �learning ecology� that is a self-organized evolving collection of cross-pollinating overlapping communities of interest.� Asynchronous web-based courses that include a discussion forum possess many of the same ecological features. All members of the class can receive and broadcast information at any time. This critical communication feature distinguishes the virtual classroom from prior forms of instructional technology.�� While instructors can mediate and guide, they cannot entirely control the flow of communication. Thus, instructor and student roles and relations are less hierarchical and more overlapping and interactive. These greater opportunities for participation can contribute to a greater diversity of opinion and perspective. It is hard work to establish these social dynamics in a physical classroom constrained by a fixed space, a designated time block, and trained inhibitions. The virtual classroom, in contrast, has the potential to establish new patterns of instructor and student interaction and, accordingly, different teaching and learning roles and practices (Girod and Cavanaugh 2001; Becker and Ravitz 1999). ��������� In making comparisons between the physical and virtual classroom, it is important to emphasize a cautionary caveat. The pedagogical ecology, be it a physical classroom or a virtual interface, cannot entirely determine a particular pedagogical practice or learning outcome. The pedagogical ecology offers opportunities and constraints that will shape and influence classroom dynamics and learning outcomes, but much will also depend on the principles informing, and the actual design of, the teaching and learning process (see Chamberlin 2001). The various practices that are employed in both a physical and a virtual classroom indicate the range of possibilities. However, if we believe that, for the purpose of student learning, active student engagement and interaction is preferable to the passive reception of information, we should consider the degree to which this principle is advanced or facilitated by the expanding virtual learning ecology.�

Sociological theories and concepts have an important role to play in analyzing and interpreting these developments. A central sociological proposition is that structural environments influence the social perceptions, roles, and relations of human actors.� As increasing numbers of students and faculty find themselves operating in virtual learning environments, we might also expect to find some changing instructional dynamics. More specifically, there are a number of questions worth exploring. What are the relationships between the technical, the social, and the pedagogical infrastructures?� How has the introduction of new instructional technologies influenced established pedagogical practices? How does the shift from a physical classroom to a virtual learning environment shape and reconfigure the social roles and relations among faculty and students? What consequences will these technologies have for developing pedagogical practices?

have less to do with the proven effectiveness of the particular practice than the desire to appear legitimate or conform to normative expectations.�

Some have reported attrition from eLearning as high as 70 - 80% (Flood 2002, Forrester 2000, in Dagger & Wade, 2004). Parker (1999) argues that “With the growth of distance education has come the problem of exceedingly high attrition rates”. Citing Carter (1996), she suggests that eLearning student attrition in some institutions is exceeds 40%, while others (Frankola, 2001). Diaz (2002), put it at between 20 - 50%,  and Carr (2000), estimate it to be 10% - 20% higher than for traditional on-campus education.