Closing the Distance

Journal of Engineering Education, Apr 2006 by Rover, Diane T

Closing the Distance Building Learning Communities in Cyberspace: Effective Strategies for the Online Classroom By Rena M. Palloff and Keith Pratt Jossey-Bass Inc., San Francisco, 1999, 240 pages, ISBN 0-7879-4460-2

A recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education by Michael J. Bugeja, "Facing the Facebook" (January 23, 2006), leads with the following appraisal of technology on campus:

"Information technology in the classroom was supposed to bridge digital divides and enhance student research. Increasingly, however, our networks are being used to entertain members of 'the Facebook Generation' who text-message during class, talk on their cellphones during labs, and listen to iPods rather than guest speakers in the wireless lecture hall."

What is Facebook? Facebook describes itself as "an online directory that connects people through social networks at schools." Wikipedia describes it as a "social networking service for high school, college, and university communities," and reports that as of December 2005, it had the largest number of registered users among college-oriented sites-with over six million students accounts and 20,000 new accounts daily. Bugeja, an Iowa State colleague just down the sidewalk, points to 20,247 registered users on Facebook from Iowa State University alone, out of a total enrollment of 25,741; nationally, the percentage of students in supported colleges having a profile is even higher. Users of Facebook create personal profiles including photos and interests, form groups of friends, and exchange messages. Detailed profile data is viewable by users from the same school or group. Facebook is just one instance of a larger concern expressed by Bugeja on the misuse of technology.

Bugeja, the author of the award-winning book Interpersonal Divide: The Search for Community in a Technological Age (2005, Oxford University Press, http://www.interpersonal-divide.org/), questions whether media technologies have created a social gap, negatively affecting the sense of community rather than enhancing it. The solution, according to Bugeja, is not to block the use of technology but rather to inform how to use it appropriately. Interestingly, that is the focus of the book selected for this Academic Bookshelf, albeit in a decidedly different context. In the domain of online distance education, technology is a requisite means. However, here too, technology must be managed and used properly. Rena M. Palloff and Keith Pratt, authors of Building Learning Communities in Cyberspace: Effective Strategies for the Online Classroom, present strategies for using technology to support student learning and to foster a sense of community. The book, winner of the 1999 Philip E. Frandson Award for Literature in Continuing Higher Education, emphasizes the pedagogical rather than the technological aspects of online distance learning. It takes a student-centered approach while serving as a guide to computer-mediated course design and implementation. The authors refer to the "human elements involved in electronic communication," and the creation of a learning community with the instructor as a member. They put forth a framework for effective distance education that does not depend on any one form of technology, and instead, promotes the best practices of educators applied in a completely different (online) environment. The book is written for both the experienced and novice online instructor.

This book immediately provided insights and ideas applicable to my own teaching of graduate computer engineering courses via distance education. In engineering at Iowa State, we deliver live video streaming of lectures, and use the WebCT course management system, which provides various interaction tools. I found Chapter 2, "Defining and Redefining Community," and Chapter 8, "Promoting Collaborative Learning," to be particularly relevant, as Chapter 2 gives the why and Chapter 8, the what. The book is organized in two parts, with the first providing foundation material and the second, experiential material.

Part One: The Learning Community in Cyberspace

Chapter 1: When Teaching and Learning Leave the Classroom

Chapter 2: Defining and Redefining Community

Chapter 3: What We Know About Electronic Learning

Chapter 4: Time and Group Size

Chapter 5: Managing the Technology

Part Two: Building an Electronic Learning Community

Chapter 6: Making the Conversion from the Classroom to Cyberspace

Chapter 7: Building Foundations

Chapter 8: Promoting Collaborative Learning

Chapter 9: Transformative Learning

Chapter 10: Evaluation

Chapter 11: Lessons Learned and a Look Ahead

Resource A: Examples of Course Syllabi

Resource B: Glossary of Terms Used in Computer-Mediated Distance Education

Resource C: Internet Resources for Distance Education

Chapter 2 makes a statement central to the premise of the book: "In distance education, attention needs to be paid to the developing sense of community within the group of participants in order for the learning process to be successful. The learning community is the vehicle through which learning occurs online." It notes that the following outcomes are indications that an online community has formed: active interaction involving course content and personal communication; student-to-student collaborative learning; socially constructed meaning; sharing of resources among students; and students supporting and evaluating the work of others.