OnLine Conferencing As Teacher

 When I first began using conferencing with my students, it became necessary to use a system that would allow me to administer to all the functions. I teach in a college that places very high demands on the systems administrators. I was not able to get timely attention to my courseware (for example, inputting the names and ids of my 125 plusstudents each term in the First Class system). I elected to use Web Course in a Box (no longer available) - a simpler system, but one where I could take care of things on a day to day basis. Now I began using my input as a model for my learners. This became extremely importantwhen my learners were also teachers who were learning how to use the system for their own courses.

For the past year I have been using Version 1 of Web Course in a Box. The current version is 2.3 which includes a lesson builder and a quizbuilder. Because this version does not work well consistently on our server at the college, I have continued to use the earlier version. I have discovered a number of limitations, primarily, the need for an experienced programmer when problems crop up. I believe the more control a teacher has over the system being used the better.

Next semester, I will be experimenting with another program, WebCT. I have not had any experience using this program but I have seen the interface in a sample lesson and hope that it will be effective for the online course. Because the technology is emergent, more and better tools will become available. A good place to stay in touch with such innovations is NODE which has discussions about aspects of online course development, and which reviews various systems for use in program delivery.