Virtual classroom turns 10
BY JULIE JASKOL
UCLA Today
A commuter uses his daily train ride to prepare for his CPA exam. A new mother joins a discussion on screenwriting while her baby naps. A State Department employee in Baghdad studies project management to help him set up a new U.S. embassy.
The bond they share is that they’re all taking online UCLA Extension courses and participating in one of the biggest consumer markets on the Internet. Online education is now a $7-billion enterprise, dwarfing even the market for online music.
And it continues to sizzle, growing at more than 36% a year. According to the research firm Eduventures, Inc., online learning is the principal driver of the growth in postsecondary enrollment in the United States.
That comes as no surprise to UCLA Extension, where online enrollments have grown by 50% in the last three years. An online pioneer on this campus, Extension now offers about 1,000 courses and more than 20 certificate programs online. More than 35,000 students have enrolled, from all 50 states and 80 countries, including the islands of Yap and Kosrae in Micronesia. The online option has also greatly increased enrollments from less distant places like Redondo Beach and Woodland Hills, where the commute to Westwood can nevertheless seem daunting.
A lot of learning has also occurred on the teacher’s side of the online classroom since Extension launched its first class 10 years ago. “Creative Writing for Beginners” was taught entirely via e-mail. “By today’s standards, this was the technological equivalent of tin cans and a string,” said Linda Venis, director of UCLA Extension‘s Writers’ Program.
Much has changed since then. For one thing, said Kathy McGuire, director of Extension’s online learning program, “we quickly realized that you couldn’t just transcribe 10 weeks of lectures and put them on the Internet.”
Both the mode of instruction and the curriculum had to evolve. “Teaching online is very different from teaching in a live class,” agreed screenwriting instructor Scott Myers, who logs in from North Carolina, where he lives. “You have to write everything out word for word — no more winging it from an outline. And then there are the one-on-one interactions with students, which can be incredibly thoughtful and extensive.”
Even though teaching online is flexible, Extension instructors have found it demanding. “In order to engender a sense of community, I visit the discussion boards three, four or five times a day,” Myers said.
There are also the unique problems that arise with having a truly global class. Myers, for example, enjoys having students from places like Siberia and the United Arab Emirates in his online class. “I have live-chat, office-hours sessions, but it’s hard to schedule them so it’s not in the middle of the night for someone.”
As much as he loves online teaching, Myers said he misses the immediate feedback of being in front of people. “Online teaching is not nearly as spontaneous,” he said. “On the other hand, the level of retention is much greater.” And even though you don’t see students’ faces or hear their voices, he said, you get to know them in a deeper way through their writing.
“Today, the online option is just something people expect as one of their many educational choices,” McGuire said. “There was a time when people thought it would replace classroom learning, but now we realize it hasn’t revolutionized education. But it certainly has expanded our choices and lifted a lot of barriers.”
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