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The author discusses the theory behind online discussions, as well as the potential value of - and problems associated with - online discussions. Some excerpts: "The argument I offer here is that saying an online discussion is a worse version of an IRL discussion is like saying an apple is a worse version of an orange. Disappointment with online discussions because they are not like IRL discussion is like being disappointed with an apple because it is a bad orange." ... "In an IRL discussion, students look, speak, and listen with multiple objects. In online discussion, like during a lecture, students sit and stare at a single object as well: but it is a computer rather than a person speaking. The lecturer is the computer. This lecturer is a screen with a keyboard and includes a complex series of frames within which the student types sentences in varying sequences. By this I am not only talking about video lectures which students watch, but rather more perceptually. In a lecture, the lecturer is the sole object of attention. There is only one object of attention: bracketing the complex material engaged with in the screen, it remains true that students exclusively engage with the screen when learning online. Students in online courses stare at a computer when learning online the same way they would stare at a lecturer speaking, focusing their attention on a single object. At a lecture, it's a person. Online, it's the computer."... "In any case, online discussions are still discussions. It would be a mistake to say all we do during online discussion is stare intensely at a computer. Most of the discussions in my online courses occur asynchronously on discussion boards. On these written discussion boards, for example, we read and write responsively. The whole situation of online discussion is therefore more akin, in this respect, to written correspondence."

From the conclusion: "Participating well in online discussions might be more like writing a good letter or having a good phone conversation, as opposed to a good spoken kind comment in an IRL discussion. We should not expect online discussions to be anything at all like IRL discussions. They are categorically different. In other words, being disappointed with online discussions because they are not like IRL discussions is like being disappointed with apples because they are not oranges." "In planning online courses, generating online assignments, and creating materials for online teaching, it is important to remember that online discussions require students to focus intense attention on a machine, and therefore compels them to cathect and introject that machine. Independently of the fluidity of your module and software, students transfer meanings onto their machines during the learning process rather than a person. While the introjection of machines is an interesting opportunity for further educational research, as an instructor, plan for student participation with this in mind: they are interacting with a machine and not people. An online discussion is more like a computer's lecture than an IRL discussion, no matter how interactive."

Online teaching redefines the faculty member's schedule. The feeling of being a 24/7 professor can lead to frustration. Managing one's time as an online teacher can be a challenge. As the popularity of online education continues to grow, teaching faculty need to develop effective time management behaviors to be efficient and not just busy.

Thank you for sharing this! I find the tips all very useful. As one example, I am going to give the students a syllabus quiz, for sure. When I took the Zaption quiz Leah prepared during M1, I was a bit surprised by how much information my brain did not retain reading through the course guidelines. The quiz was obviously helpful.

I found this article to be very helpful in providing a sense that it will be possible to control time use when teaching on line. It gives great tips on how to overcome the feeling that online teaching will be a 24/7 class rather than one that meets TTh 10-11:15 in White Hall 208! I like this one a lot.

This article seems a good (and brief) overview of issues we may encounter transitioning from face-to-face to online teaching. It is not limited to the question of workload, but it does report that online teaching takes up to 40% more time.

The 40% is for first time, and should decrease when we teach again.

The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) and Weber State University (Ogden, UT) have developed an Online teaching methods course that reflects state-of-the-art research and practice in foreign language education. This course is offered through WSU Online. For information concerning registration or to see an outline and syllabus, go to http://www.weber.edu/ForeignLanguages/Student_Resources/Onlinemethods.html.

Here is an recent interesting resource for anyone including music history or historical facts about music or musicians in their class lectures or research: James Briscoe, Vitalizing Music History Teaching (HIllsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2010). This is a series of collected essays about specific issues in teaching music history in the 21st century. Although certainly not focused solely on teaching online, it certainly presents a variety of principles, problems, and proposals that current teachers are facing in the music history classroom and I found it very helpful.

A online teacher has been teaching online for five years. Here, she shares the top 10 best practices she has learned about online teaching.

Thank you, marshall!

Thanks, this is actually very helpful. I am struggling now with how to adapt my assignments and particularly with how much reading i can realistically assign in an online summer class.

Article by Karen Thickstun in American Music Teacher from Aug/Sept 2014, Vol.6, Issue 1. The article explores the various alternatives in teaching music with the emergence of modern technology in the U.S. It states that online teaching needs a little change from the procedures in a traditional studio. It highlights the significance of the modern technology in teaching as it improved the methods of teaching while reaching new and diverse students.

If you are considering teaching online or are looking for ideas to freshen-up your current online course, you have come to the right resource. Designing for the online environment presents unique challenges, but it also opens a world of exciting possibilities for engaging students in their learning.

In brief, the study shows that yes online teaching is time consuming but NOT because of the technology involved but because it is a great time investment to interact with all students. Again brings me back to my point that YES online teaching helps to 'individualize/personalize' the student learning process. Therefore, requires greater inputs and personalize mentoring than a traditional classroom engagement.

This article gives 6 practical tips to manage your time when teaching online

Thanks for sharing this, Simona. Skimming the article you highlighted and a few of the others in the journal, I noticed that some of the themes and suggestions were similar to the ones in the texts assigned by Leah (manage the students and their interactions actively and constantly/consistently, be empathic and explicit); I also appreciate the user-friendliness of these articles, as they include plenty of bullet-points for the busy reader ... Finally, I like that this journal is indeed international, including views on online teaching from around the world. Would be great if we could learn more about how online education functions elsewhere.

Here is the very large report following ten years of studying online education. I think it probably has been or will be cited in other postings in this bibliography, but I thought it would be good to post the whole thing here. It's is very comprehensive but also easy to access. Enjoy!

Tenth annual report on the status of online learning in U.S. higher education. The survey is based on the response from more than 2,800 colleges and universities and addresses the status of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), the increasing importance of a long-term teaching strategy, ther percentage of students learning online, does it take more time and effort for faculty, is online comparable to F2F learning, faculty acceptance to online learning, and barriers to the adoption of online learning.

Not surprising (to me), there are very few studies of online teaching in Linguistics. The authors of this article state that they found only one prior to this 2014 publication. Similar to other research on online teaching in general, they found that time management, communication, and detailed instructions are crucial for a successful course. They also discuss how attitudes toward technology play a significant role in course success.

With this and another article that I will also post, I think I have found the answer to the question I posted on Bb discussion/reflection - is it better to be redundant or to be a minimalist? To quote from the other article, "in an online environment, redundancy is often better than elegant succinctness." To quote from this article - in Cybernetics, Norbert Wiener said, "We can hardly expect that any important message is entrusted for transmission to a single neuron, nor that any important operation is entrusted to a single neuronal mechanism." When teaching writing online, simply put, you should provide information to your students through multiple means.

OK. Here is the other article I promised. My interest was to find out about the principle of redundancy, but this article is not just about that. Editor's Note : Effective online learning requires careful preparation, design, implementation, and follow-up. This article combines best practices from a variety of resources - research studies, publications, and discussions among online instructors. The analogy of a garden is used to reinforce practices that will ensure a successful "harvest!"

Hi Yu, I like this article. For some points, I had not thought about them. Thanks for sharing.

A list of free tools for language teachers: for example, tools that can be used for creating and editing technology-enhanced tasks, activities, and materials for language learning. Especially useful for our group as we have many instructors teaching language classes!

This page contains a list of free tools and resources for online teaching. It's geared toward language-learning, but has a wide variety of different things.

Whoops, I seem to keep finding things that have already been posted!

The survey sought to dig deeper on the quality question, asking respondents which aspects of credit-bearing online courses they think can be better than, or at least equal to, those of in-person courses. Faculty members say they think online courses are the same quality as or better than face-to-face classes in terms of grading and communicating about grading, and in communicating with the college about logistical and other issues. And professors were split 50/50 (the same or better vs. lower quality) on online courses' "ability to deliver the necessary content to meet learning objectives."

"Much of the faculty consternation in the last year about how institutions (and, increasingly, state legislators) want to use online education has revolved around the perceived quality of online offerings (although there are undoubtedly undercurrents of concern about whether colleges and universities will use technology to diminish the role of, and ultimately the need for, instructors)." Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/survey/survey-faculty-attitudes-technology#ixzz38WwyClaW Inside Higher Ed I think it's interesting that indicators of 'quality' that were considered important (by faculty) included whether or not the online course was offered for credit. But, there are plenty of for-credit courses offered at accredited colleges in a traditional format that are pretty....bad. And I think that the EFOT course has given us the clear indication that online courses almost need instructors MORE than traditional f2f courses.

With the number of students taking online classes increasing, the need for instructors to be versed in the world of online teaching also increases. What are some best practices of online teaching? Do MOOCs have a place in the higher education learning market? How will the virtual classroom evolve?

I appreciated this article's insistence that our focus needs to be on learning outcomes rather than technology. Recently, I taught an in-person class that was designed with a strong audio-visual component. This was for an adult education program outside Emory. But after the first class I realized that the audiovisual material was distracting me and not contributing that much, so I ditched it. What worries me about being an online instructor is not being able to make quick changes to the audiovisual regime during the semester.