Launching the Online Experience: The Role of Technology

Setting up the online experience in essential to the learning experience.  The integration of technology into the online learning environment is a crucial step in this process.  Choosing, organizing, presenting and supporting technology are four of the most important aspects of the set up process.  However, the instructor’s knowledge of the technology is the first and most important aspect of technology integration.  When instructors are knowledgeable and comfortable with technology, their decision-making, application, and anticipation and response to student needs are more effective than when they just have a working or limited knowledge of the technology.

Understanding technology’s role and anticipating student’s interaction with technology provide the instructor with an informed starting point for informing students of how technology will be used in the course.  In particular, instructors must provide students with clear expectations about the specific technologies that will be use and the expectations for their use across all of the specific activities and assignments in the course.  This appears to be a simple process, but there are subtle, but important aspects of this process that must be attended to by the instructor.  First, students learn what is expected and they can take inventory of their technology skills to determine if they are competent and comfortable with all of the technologies and in all of the applications. If they identify gaps in their technology skills, they can identify the resources needed to supplement their technology skills for successful completion of course requirements.  This is valuable because it reduces or eliminates anxiety that can be connected to perceived or real gaps between what is required in the course and the student’s technology skills.  Developing student confidence and self-efficacy contribute to perceived and real student persistence, especially during the first two-weeks of class.  For these reasons, clear communication not only informs students of technology issues, but actually empowers them to take an active role in their success.

Second, instructors must make the distinction between how technology is integrated into the course, how students are prepared to use technology before the course begins, and how students must be supported early in the course to maintain their connection to the course and community.  It is the latter point that can be minimized in the heat of course delivery.  The first two weeks are the busiest time for instructors and various demands can minimize a instructors focus on the role and impact of technology.  In particular, best practices indicate that instructors mush be diligent in their effort to develop community among students, so as instructor are checking in with students to ensure that they are well connected and that the instructor is making a “human” connection with all of the students, they must also check in with students who do not appear to be keeping up with assignments in the first two weeks.  To avoid a minimization of the role of technology, I suggest that a part of that checking in process should be to address any difficulties the student might be having.  Consider the following possibilities that may occur for students who anticipated minimal difficulty with the technology.  First, it is possible that student expectations of their technology skills could have been over-estimated.  Second, student may also have under-estimated the degree of difficulty the technology’s sophistication.  Third, students may not have accessed the available training resources that can build the necessary technology skills.  Considering all of these issues, it becomes understandable that students may begin a course felling very confident that they can be successful with the course technology and encounter significant problems in this area that put them at risk for success and completion of the course.  It is the instructor’s responsibility to anticipate and quickly respond to these possibilities.