Virtual Education

THE CHALLENGES OF VIRTUAL EDUCATION
Mr Alejandro Franco J
E-dUCO Research Group Moderador
E-mail: [e-mail]
Psychologist, Specialist in Psychoanalysis
Software & Systems Engineering Undergraduate Student
Research Group E-dUCO Moderator
Social Sciences Faculty Professor
Eastern Catholic University, Colombia
Abstract
The article shows the challenges at administrative, teacher-student and technological levels that should face the University to enter virtual education: the teachers� resistance to the technology and the pedagogic change; the students� resistance to take the responsibility of their learning process in an active way; and the technological, administrative and legal challenges that implies the three levels of virtual education (totally virtual, half-virtual and virtual support to face-to-face courses). It outlines that the university should lean on research for not entering this process without an appropriate strategic planning, and it suggests some strategies to advance quickly toward this goal.
Virtual education is a teaching-learning process based on the principles of active pedagogy (the student should take the responsibility of a frequent and effective participation), with the characteristics of distance education (during all classes, or most of them, the students and the teacher will not meet personally, although this could happen in a virtual space), and with the possibility of synchronous or asynchronous interaction (for example, they can chat with each other in real time using internet services, but also by e-mail or participate in e-groups that are asynchronous technologies that don 't require that both are on-line at the same time).
In the international arena, virtual education grows every day, offering programs in basic and secondary education, as well as undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. Today it�s possible to take virtual courses at some of the most popular universities in the world, which certifies the credits that the student acquires at the end. Many other universities, sensitive about the distance problem of many of their candidates, and of the schedule difficulties in others, have begun to implement virtual programs with the purpose of reaching those students that can�t assist to their campus.
Nowadays, Eastern Catholic University at Rionegro (Colombia, South America) is advancing toward three levels of virtual education: totally virtual, half-virtual and virtual support of Campus education, not only with the intention of increasing the number of students (reaching those that are far away or whose schedules make impossible to assist to the campus), but also with the goal of improving the quality of the educational process, adding active pedagogy and multimedia tools to the "on Campus" programs. Having that in mind, the University created a Virtual Education Committee that begun their work around two years ago. The process has been delayed partially due to problems in the acquisition and assembly of a virtual educational platform, but probably also because of the natural human resistance to change.
Right now, the process begins to take a new impulse from research, with the foundation in May of the Research Group on Virtual Education and Multimedia Technologies for Teaching and Learning, "E-dUCO"; this group has already begun to carry out the first experiences of virtual courses in this sense, as well as to present the first research project that look for to open him the one in route to the whole process. The group works interdisciplinary, this way: from the skills of engineering we have the technological support, from the education specialists we have the pedagogic support and from the ability of social sciences we worry about the motivation component and also about educational and social psychology (analyzing the best way of awake motivation and to promote interaction in the course). Among the "E-dUCO" objectives is to give support, from research, to the Virtual Education Committee, and it is in this interaction that we have visualized the following challenges that, although they have been thought for our University, they are the same ones that will face any other university in the same conditions.
Challenge 1: To overcome the teacher�s resistance to enter in the technological era
Unfortunately, today there are professors that don 't know how to read an email neither how to take advantage of the internet to improve research. Sometimes resistance is very strong and they only start this process when they are forced to, or even just ask for help to a colleague so that he/she makes it for them. There are probably two big factors that influence this resistance: ignorance and lack of motivation, the last one due to certain unconscious resistance. It is very probable that the first factor (the ignorance) can be corrected with training, but in the second one is probably the administrative area the one that should incentive teachers. Concerning the unconscious resistance, this could be the result of computer-related frustrations (frustration promotes aggression), of the fear to face new things (fear for changes), or of the narcissistic idea (some kind of omnipotence) that there is nothing that the machine can do for us in the teaching-learning process.
Challenge 2: To overcome the teacher�s resistance to change in the pedagogic level
To teach in a virtual classroom doesn 't mean to film a traditional class and to put it in the internet so that the students attend virtually; neither it means to record it, to transcribe it in text and then to copy it in a web page. It means to transform the traditional pedagogy toward an electronic pedagogy in which the professor becomes a facilitator of the student 's learning process and an active pedagogy supporter. This "new" pedagogy supposes that the teacher should be qualified in new pedagogic techniques, but also that it should renounce, totally or partially, to the face to face interaction in class, and, for some of them, this is very difficult.
For many professors it can also be a threatening experience if they don 't feel comfortable in writing, because interaction in virtual education is given mostly in this way (and we know that frequently it is a great difficulty for some teachers to write). Also, for many, to face the new course could be the problem, when he/she is already accustomed to use an easy pedagogy in which the same class is repeated semester after semester without having to make the effort of researching, of improving, of enlarging the cognitive spectrum. Here the strategies must promote training in the new techniques, and the administrative staff should make the necessary to push teachers to participate in them, since we have verified that when this process depends in the teacher�s will, they resist changing.
Finally, many teachers allege that excessive work load is the one that doesn 't leave time to do research or to enter these new fields of the virtual education. The administrative staff of the university should establish mechanisms to verify this and, in that sense, to make the appropriate modifications so that in each professor 's work load there�s a space in this sense.
Challenge 3: To overcome the resistance of the students to work without a "father" in front of them
Our students have the habit to work in a space in which only the professor speaks and directs his class, during all classes. This makes the students to adopt a passive position (based in just listening to the teacher); in this case, the good teacher is the one that makes all the effort, while the bad teacher is the exigent one, the teacher who makes work their students and the one that doesn 't give everything. The consequence is that an enormous distrust is generated toward the facilitator teacher�s role, which is the position of the professor in a virtual course, but, at the same time, it generates a resistance to leave the laziness and the easiness to a position in which should be been responsible for what memorizes. The "father" professor is the one that has all knowledge (the only one) and all power (of directing to his students to where he wants). It is a position that generates a lot of satisfaction because of the power recognition and for the admiration that many times it raises, but at the same time it�s a position that prevents the diversity of ideas, promotes the repetitive learning and kills creativity.
At the same time it�s a professor that protects the student�s laziness who can then rest peacefully without being forced to think, just pushed to memorize information for the tests and sometimes to analyze, but only with the contents given in the class, never with further researching, never reading or experiencing more than what they are requested to do. In this sense, the new "Credit" system in Colombian education tries to solve the problem, but a deeper change is needed: we won 't win anything forcing the students to make things that they don 't like. If learning becomes an obligation then we finish creating a "study phobia" and a "research phobia". We should develop joyful and creative learning techniques that allow the student to be motivated toward his/her knowledge acquisition process.
Challenge 4: To overcome the resistance of the students to take an active position in their search for knowledge
It is necessary to admit that, in general, most of our students have become more and more lazy. And there are many factors that play a significant role: the automatic promotion that, from the school or the high school makes the student to think that it is the same thing to win or to lose (it�s almost impossible to lose, there�s always a strategy to avoid this), the lack of motivation for knowledge in teachers (and also in the parents) that is contagious to the students, the absence of a social ideal that makes of studying with effort a sublime goal to reach, the mental resistance to do hard intellectual work� Everything must be added when we consider proposing a methodology that wants to transform that passive position in the contrary. When the student notices that he/she will have to move from their passive position, he/she prefers to begin to protest, and it is then when he/she attacks the teacher, the course, and even the school or the university, telling everyone that he/she is thinking in leaving the institution. This aspect, mainly in the private area, and in face of the economic crisis, force some institutions to give up in their efforts to promote active pedagogy, without realizing the damage that is caused promoting students that don�t deserving it, and without seeing the consequences for the society that will receive a high school graduate or a professional that it is not qualified as such. For this particular case, politics are required to promote active pedagogy from the first academic semester, because it is necessary to start an entire adaptation process that substitutes the previous passive pedagogy for an active pedagogy that promotes the passion for knowledge and not the boredom for learning.
Challenge 5: To overcome the technological, administrative and legal setbacks
The first setback is the technological one. To implement technologies that allows virtual education it�s necessary to have more equipments (internet connected computers) for the on Campus students that are going to attend half-virtual courses, and also for those that will have virtual supports to their classes, and that don 't have a computer with an internet connection in at home. This would also require a bigger band width so that, in the event of a simultaneous use of all the university net resources, the server doesn 't become the factor that makes too slow the visit to the courses. More computers, more bandwidth, means bigger education quality if they really take the opportunity, and also means the possibility to attract more students (including distance students), but, obviously, it also means more money. Also, if there�s a full entry in the process, it will be quite useful the acquisition of a technological platform that organizes the whole process cohesively (two of the most recognized tools in the market are WebCT and Blackboard, but there are other examples). As I already noted, it is possible to make virtual education with free tools, but much more teacher hours are used for the design, the organization and the execution of the course.
The second setback is administrative. Given the big resistances that this change will bring, if there is not a real desire on the administration to push this project in all the university, the process will fail. The first data are conclusive, after an invitation to an undergraduate half virtual course during the last semester, neither one alone of the students accepted the invitation. The invitation became extensive to carry out the same course, this time totally virtual, to all the teachers and the administrative staff: 34 people registered, but three weeks only five of them continue to participate assiduously. What this indicates is that there�s a motivation absence, so it will be necessary to generate it, with clear and objective politics, with promotion and with benefits to people who participates.
The third setback is the legal one. The university must define the rules clearly for each type of experience (virtual, half-virtual, virtual support) so that the whole community can be guided in the process. This means that it�s going to be necessary to think about how to remunerate the person that creates the virtual course, the one who creates the half-virtual course or the one who creates the virtual support; also it�s necessary to determine how to remunerate the person that facilitates the virtual course and how to remunerate the virtual assistances and the time connected to internet. Student regulations and educational statutes should be modified including this perspective, creating a solid and organized frame that foresees all the situations that can be faced.
After looking all these five challenges one could think that to overcome them is a dream, but dreaming is the first step to achieve something. If it is possible to create a combined and organized motivation among the administration, the faculties (with both teachers and students) and the technology, we will be able to advance together toward this new tool that the world of distance education offers us in the technological era: virtual interaction.
Final Notice
We should write down that for the realization of this experience of a virtual course for the time being are not using a virtual educational platform as those that previously name and that integrate all the resources in one, but rather we combine a series of free tools (they are not the only ones, but they have a good quality; the only cost is to allow them to place a window with publicity in the page that the user can close with a simple maneuver). They are:
� To harbor the courses: Yahoo Geocities ( http://geocities.yahoo.com).
� To have the discussion lists: Yahoo Groups ( http://groups.yahoo.com)
� To use the synchronous written discussion or " chat " there are several options, but we use Yahoo Messenger (http://messenger.yahoo.com) and Microsoft Messenger.
� To design the web pages : Front Page Express, Netscape. Sometimes we used also other programs like DreamWeaver or Front Page XP.
� For the self examinations we use a free software called internet Custom Test, created by Vantarakis Software, (http://www.customtest.cjb.net /).
� To design the courses we have used two strategies, apart from the experience that each one has had in their work as teachers: the reading and analysis of the newest books in the subject, and the attendance to some free virtual courses in internet (almost always in English, like in the Barnes & Noble University http://www.barnesandnobleuniversity.com).
Bibliography
1. COLLISON, George et al. (2000). Facilitating Online Learning. Effective Strategies for Moderators. Madison, Atwood Publishing.
2. HANNA, Donald et al. (2000). 147 Practical Tips for teaching online groups: Essentials of Web-based education. Madison, Atwood Publishing.
3. PALLOFF, Rena M. y PRATT, Keith. (2001). Lessons from the cyberspace classroom: The realities of online teaching. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass.
4. PALLOFF, R. y PRATT, K. (2003). The Virtual Student: A profile and guide to working with online learners. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass.
5. SALMON, Gilly. (2003). E-tivities: The key to active online learning. London, Kogan Page.

Bibliography: 1. COLLISON, George et al. (2000). Facilitating Online Learning. Effective Strategies for Moderators. Madison, Atwood Publishing. 2. HANNA, Donald et al. (2000). 147 Practical Tips for teaching online groups: Essentials of Web-based education. Madison, Atwood Publishing. 3. PALLOFF, Rena M. y PRATT, Keith. (2001). Lessons from the cyberspace classroom: The realities of online teaching. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass. 4. PALLOFF, R. y PRATT, K. (2003). The Virtual Student: A profile and guide to working with online learners. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass. 5. SALMON, Gilly. (2003). E-tivities: The key to active online learning. London, Kogan Page.