LESLEY COLLEGE COURSES USE THE WEB

This past spring some adventuresome Lesley faculty stepped out of the classroom and cast themselves into cyberspace to offer the college's first on-line courses. While some of the offerings were based on established courses, others were conceived specifically for the Internet environment. The year ahead offers even more promise, combining the lessons learned from a year of study by the cross-college distance learning group, a more comprehensive college network, and additional institutional resources to expand and enrich Lesley's course offerings on the Internet.

In this new age, there isn't an excuse for missing class. For "Ethics and Managerial Choices," students had complete flexibility as to when they did the course work for Professor Barry Sugarman. All class "meetings" took place on the Internet. Some assignments required students to work in small groups, which they achieved by conversing via keyboarded "conversations," before "reporting" to the whole class. Sugarman has taught the one-credit graduate management course in the traditional fashion for many years before adapting it for on-line students.

This fall, Assistant Professor George Blakeslee will again teach "Computers: Impact on Society and School" on-line through a conferencing system of his design, webTalk. Besides being adapted for students on the information highway, Blakeslee will also deliver this course in the traditional semester format and via intensive weekend delivery.

Says Blakeslee of last spring's on-line class, "Students read the same books and articles and engaged in discussions of the same topics [as students in my on-campus course]. These took place via e-mail, and typically lasted 2-3 weeks per topic." Blakeslee comments that there was a learning curve to the new forum: "An on-line course quickly becomes very complex as the different participants join in at different times to different degrees, and having three or more simultaneous conversations was not unusual."

Blakeslee's evaluation of the cyberspace classroom is very positive although keeping discussions focused is a particular challenge, he says. "By directing the conversation and having everyone `cc' each other, it is possible to develop a discussion with complexity and depth."

Cynthia Brown, who reworked her course, "America on the Move," echoes Blakeslee. Seven students are taking the School of Management course via e-mail and text postings. "We are all still learning how to communicate effectively via the Internet," Brown reports. "In addition to email, phone and fax are used to communicate."

Last spring, Brown worked with Katherine Holmes to create a web page for the course "Education Research and Evaluation." Holmes also has created a web site that has been actively used and had contributions by students in her "Curriculum Philosophy, Theory and Development" class.

Lesley faculty Mary Mindess and Joanne Szamreta designed a professional development course for early intervention providers specifically for the on-line student. After posting the announcement for the course on the Internet, students enrolled from New England, Alaska, Oregon and Florida. Mindess and Szamreta are most excited about how much they have learned in tackling the challenges of the new technology. It is a theme expressed by all these faculty. "It's been a tremendous amount of work," says Mindess, but one of the greatest things is how willing so many have been to help us set-up this course."

A partial listing of this year's planned on-line courses and classes that use the web follows. Many of these classes were successfully piloted last year by our faculty pioneers in distance learning.

• Joan Thormann is using electronic mail between sessions in her off-campus course "Telecommunications in the Classroom" and anticipates the application of a conferencing dimension this semester.

• George Flavin of the Intensive Residency Option Program is working with other faculty in running two groups via electronic mail and plans to extend this work via on-line conferencing and the use of a web site.

• Last year Marie Gannon offered a one credit course "Telecommunicate: Telecommunications in the Classroom" in partnership with MCET, using satellite delivery and two-way audio to hold five "live" sessions. Assignments are conducted using the web with course materials and supports on a course home page.

• Pablo Navarro plans to incorporate electronic materials to support the "Lives in Context" course this fall and create an on-line version as well.

• Angie Ferris and Winnie Skolnikoff have been working on a web site for the on-line offering of the "Teaching of Writing K-12" course.

Richard Rogers, of the Center for Mathematics, science and Technology in Education, has been instrumental in support of most of the above efforts and has plans underway for the creation of a web course offering that will provide professional development to teachers.