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Our online program is based on the conviction that the personal interactions that the online student has with the instructor and with fellow students are a very important component of the learning process. The more personal, people oriented, atmosphere will hopefully also foster a greater enjoyment of the courses.
One way that personal interactions are promoted is through the live lectures. The online students attends live lectures through a custom browser screen as shown in figure 3. The video and audio are streamed out using Real Media software.
A small but important video window reinforces the notion of being in a classroom with a live professor and fellow students. A TA attending the class switches this video window to show the professor, the local students, or the lecture as needed. Dedicated cameras with multiple presets and other hardware allow this to be done rapidly.
A chat program allows the online students to ask questions live, while the material is being presented. (However, there is a lag of about 10 to 30 seconds between when something is said in the classroom and when the online student hears it. This delay is due to the buffering needed to allow for unknown network throughput.) A small picture of the student in the chat box preceding the question makes the interaction more personal for the instructor and the students. It allows them to see who is talking. Also, during the start of the class, the instructor and students see the pictures of all online students appear as they log into the chat box. This establishes who attends online, even if they do not ask questions.
The chat box works well: there is usually a good amount of feedback through it. Sometimes one student will answer the question of another student in it. The chat box is less of an interruption than a question in the class room itself, since an interruption only occurs if and when the instructor answers.
We do also provide video conferencing during the live lectures using a separate computer, but it has not become popular. The students seem to be happy with the chat box. Also, we discourage students from running both video conferencing and streaming media on the same computer. However, it could be done in a computer lab if the student can reserve more than one computer.
We further promote personal interactions by providing office hours with two-way video and audio, along with a whiteboard for formulae, sketches, et cetera. The software we use here is M.S. Netmeeting.
We also plan to encourage online students to communicate with fellow online students using the chat program, video conferencing, E-mail, and a newsgroup. This has not yet been much of an issue, since so far the online students have been able to communicate directly with each other.