Using Technology in Online Courses

Online education, which was in its infancy in the late 20th century, has become a staple in the United States. Students want these courses and institutions need faculty to deliver them. About 6 million students take at least one class online, and the number of online students has been increasing each year (Allen & Seaman, 2008, 2010, 2011). An increased demand has required an increase in accountability for course delivery. If the classes are not delivered well then students will be dissatisfied with their experience (Bernat & Frailing, 2015; Roach & Lemasters, 2006; Summers, Waigandt, & Whittaker, 2005). Student satisfaction can be improved if the online faculty member provides “timely, helpful communication with the (students); clear directions regarding course expectations, student assignments and requirements; and support for enrollment and data security” (Roach & Lemasters, 2006, p. 329). To ensure that online courses meet student and institutional needs, online faculty must be educated in the pedagogy of online instruction and provided with tools for enhancing the online educational experience (Guerrero & Crites, 2013; Pagliari, Batts, & McFadden, 2009; Sammel, Weir, & Klopper, 2014). Guerrero and Crites (2013) found, for example, that by critically evaluating the appropriate tools to use in an online course, student success is enhanced because online courses should not merely transfer face-to-face course materials to online learning environments. Online courses should have engagement between and among students and the instructor, and have engaging materials that make effective use of technology so that social and academic engagement is enhanced and sustained.

This article addresses two aspects of online education: (1) how to develop a linkage between institutional requirements that courses have measurable learning outcomes and, (2) how to utilize technology to enhance the learning experience. Analysis of how tools are used in an accelerated online graduate criminal justice course will be provided. The online graduate course, Law and Criminal Justice, exemplifies how online education can be an effective delivery mode if a faculty member develops course materials with pedagogical objectives rather than let the tools develop the course. Law and Criminal Justice is a required course in the program and contextualizes the purpose of the criminal law and why the state punishes offenders. Within the course, the faculty member developed teaching materials using Blackboard, Soft-Chalk, VoiceThread, and other online tools (PDF readings, web-based links to U.S. Supreme Court cases, YouTube videos, etc.). Students in the course are expected to read materials on a daily basis, Monday through Thursday, and contribute multiple times per day to a discussion that builds on the material and places the historical discussion in a contemporary context.

This article will discuss the use of technology in an online graduate course offered at the authors’ institution of higher learning. We analyze the substantive course materials in light of the pedagogical frame of promoting student academic engagement (via student to material engagement) and social engagement (via faculty to student, student to student, and student to faculty engagement). The graduate course that is the focus on this paper is offered each fall; all of the enrolled students are pursuing a master’s degree in criminal justice.

In addition to analyzing the substantive course offering and the technologies that were employed, we surveyed students enrolled in the course during the fall 2018 semester. The course was taught for 7 weeks between October and December. Five students completed the survey; four of these students had previously taken an online course. All five students primarily worked on this course from home but three students also indicated that they worked on the course at their workplace. All five students were most familiar with YouTube videos and reading materials in a PDF format; four students indicated familiarity with the course learning platform (Blackboard), use of Microsoft Office tools, use of the library’s database to search for materials, taking online exams, and using Turn-it-In for checking term paper originality scores. Most students had not used VoiceThread (an online discussion tool), or SoftChalk (an online lecture presentation tool) which were integral parts of this online course, and many students did not know what Web 2.0 tools were. Not surprisingly, three of the five students found the use of VoiceThread to give them some difficulty. One student said “After I would do a voice thread I could not comment on any other threads. I would have to log out and go back in to submit comments.” Four of the students said that the technologies employed in the course enabled them to learn about the course’s subject matter.

Online education must meet quality standards (Asgari & Borzooei, 2014; Bernat & Frailing, 2015; Shelton, 2011). When evaluating the quality of programs and courses, institutions and accrediting bodies evaluate learning outcomes. In the 20th century, little attention was given to what skills students would have when they leave a course or program. Currently, faculty are expected to articulate learning outcomes and align them to institutional and program outcomes, and also align them to individual class modules or units. To remain competitive in a global economy, universities are expected to show that students who graduate from their institutions have the skills and knowledge to contribute to the workplace. Outcomes are intended to show specific skill sets that students develop by successful completion of the course.

While universities can articulate what learning outcomes they expect students to attain upon graduation, we can see similarities in the manner they are expressed by comparing universities’ learning outcome statements. Princeton is a top national university according to the 2017 U.S. News & World Report ranking. Princeton aims to offer students a curriculum that “emphasizes learning, creativity, innovation and collaboration with a program of liberal arts in the humanities, arts, social sciences, natural sciences and engineering” (https://www.princeton.edu/academics/studying-princeton). Amherst College is among the best liberal arts colleges in the United States (U.S. News & World Report, 2019). Amherst College indicates that its open curriculum is designed to have students “discover their intellectual and creative passions and equip themselves for a life of active, collaborative learning” (https://www.amherst.edu/academiclife).

In regard to specific course learning outcomes, faculty are expected to provide instruction that will provide students with “critical thinking, analysis, synthesis, creativity, problem solving, evaluation, and computer ability” skills (Asgari & Borzooei, 2014). Learning outcomes are not simply the list of topics to be covered in a course; they are the “thread that unites all the topics that will be covered and the skills students should have mastered by the end of the semester” (MIT Teaching and Learning Lab, 2018). Learning materials should be used to connect the goals of each lesson to the technology employed and ultimately align with the course and program learning outcomes (Garrison & Cleveland-Innes, 2005). For example, the specific learning outcomes from UCLA’s MEd in Student Affairs degree requires students to develop skills and knowledge in seven domains; within each domain are three to five specific learning outcomes (https://gseis.ucla.edu/education/academic-programs/student-affairs/learning-outcomes/). Having no more than five specific outcomes for any particular domain enables faculty to manage assessment used for institutional accreditation purposes.

The authors have reviewed numerous course and program student-learning outcomes in the evaluation of online courses for certification and have found a number of similar problems with the way in which learning outcomes are presented. First, some faculty confuse a course learning outcome with their goals for a course and mistakenly present a learning outcome as the faculty member’s objectives. For example, the learning outcome might be stated as “in this class, I will cover X topic” rather than as “at the completion of this class, you will be able to evaluate X.” To remedy this mistake, the faculty member should think about the skill set that the student will gain from the course. Second, some faculty have too many learning objectives. We have seen course learning outcomes as numbering up to 15, or one per week for the term. The faculty member in such cases appears to mistake weekly module/lesson objectives with the overall course objectives. To correct this problem, the faculty member should write more general course objectives; these can be a compilation of several learning objectives that are tied to individual modules or units. Third, the faculty member does not use measurable action verbs which can be assessed. Measurable action verbs can be found by referring to Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning Domains (http://www.nwlink.com/~don-clark/hrd/bloom.html). Lower level courses should have beginning levels of skill and knowledge development, while upper division and graduate courses should have higher levels of skill and knowledge acquisition.

In a criminal justice curriculum, lower level courses should have learning outcomes associated with identifying key personnel in the system, defining key legal terms, and summarizing the criminal justice process. Upper division courses should have learning outcomes associated with analyzing criminal justice system responses to crime, evaluating the ethical responsibilities of criminal justice personnel, analyzing patterns of crime and, analyzing justice/injustice issues associated with the criminal justice process. At the graduate level, courses should have learning outcomes that include the synthesis of the foregoing undergraduate level outcomes, and students should engage in evaluation of the system and system policies.

Criminal Justice Online Graduate Course. In a 7-week, accelerated online course format, it is important to ensure that the state’s policy for meeting appropriate credit hour requirements are met. Because Law and Criminal Justice is a 3-credit graduate course, the materials were presented in units which required students to complete “the normal” 15-week course in half the time. Two units were taught each week, and each unit built upon the materials previously taught. One unit was the focus of readings and materials on Mondays and Tuesdays, the second unit was the focus of readings and materials on Wednesday and Thursday. The faculty member ensured that each unit had clear objectives associated with the main objective of the required course. The overall course objectives were stated as:

Upon successful completion of this course, it is expected that each student will be able to:

• distinguish the various legal theories which underlie the criminal justice system;

• think critically and write analytically about contemporary legal issues in the criminal justice system;

• analyze the various criminal justice responses to legal change; and

• analyze various legal cases pertaining to criminal justice processes.

These objectives are presented at a higher level of achievement so that graduate students are analyzing and assessing theory, law, and policy. Unit level objectives were specifically addressed to the particular reading and lecture materials to highlight the particular pedagogical frame of the course. For example, one unit’s learning objectives show the relationship between Marx’s theory of law while the next unit’s learning objectives extended the analysis to Weber’s view of law.

Unit 5:

• discuss Marxist theory;

• explain the relationship between Marx’s theory and conflict theory;

• apply the relevance of theory of crime causation to sentencing practices.

Unit 6:

• discuss Weber’s methodology and rationalism;

• compare and contrast Weber and Marx; and

• explain Weber’s view on the different form of society and their forms of leadership;

• compare and contrast ideals of natural law and administrative law.

The course objective and unit objectives are not so numerous that the students will not be able to achieve them and are targeted to the pedagogical thread that the instructor has designed in the course. All five students found that having a variety of technologies employed in the course was very important to meeting course learning objectives.

Online education must not be a read and post class; it is more than a dog and pony show. If done effectively, online instruction can be as effective as face-to-face instruction (Bernat & Frailing, 2015). According to Burch, Heller, Burch, and Heller (2016), if online courses promote competency and engagement then the online students will be as successful as those in face-to-face classes. In their research comparing knowledge assessment outcomes between online and face-to-face students, online students scored higher on examinations than did their face-to-face counterparts, although social interaction outcomes were generally better for face-to-face students. The method of delivering instruction can make a difference, and faculty should consider what they want students to have learned by the time they leave the class. Faculty to student engagement can impact student learning, and faculty teaching online courses should attempt to find ways to engage students beyond the learning of the materials. Students in the online graduate course found faculty to student engagement to be important (three students found it to be very important and two students found it to be important) to their learning; they found student to student engagement to also be important (one student said it was very important and three students said it was important).

Diverse Learners. Faculty should consider university policies and laws regarding accommodation. If possible, a course will have materials which include optional access to materials for diverse learners. Faculty should provide the policies of the variety of websites (internal and external) that students access to be successful in the course. Diversity includes students with disabilities, language barriers, emotional difficulties, and gifted students. Diversity concerns require attention to the diversity of a classroom in terms of age, gender, class, culture, race, aptitude, life experiences, and learning preferences (Subban, 2006). Faculty must engage students, accommodate learning differences, and motivate students, regardless of the students’ backgrounds (Subban, 2006). Various barriers to student access include, among other things, cost and access to the Internet and technical problems (Muilenburg & Berge, 2005).

To respond to the need of diverse learners, faculty could use differentiated instruction techniques to provide for the diverse educational learning needs of students; in short, not all students learn in the same ways (Subban, 2006). Faculty should consider the variety of online tools that can be used and work with their university to ensure delivery of the tools to students. Sammel et al. (2014, p. 110) found “that consideration of the diversity of prior experience and knowledge about digital learning technologies among the teaching staff is also paramount if they are being used to enhance course learning outcomes.” Faculty should not use the learning platform just to house course materials and should not rely solely on text publishers for online materials. Anticipate how students will interact in the course and how they will respond to the variety of tools used.

Criminal Justice Online Graduate Course. In the online course Law and Criminal Justice, the online learning staff have developed materials to ensure that students who have diverse needs know whom they can contact to get assistance. The university is prepared to work with all students who may need assistance.

In addition, although no students have indicated that they had diverse learning needs, the instructor developed materials for the course to be accessible for diverse learners. She ensured, for example, that essential videos used in the lecture materials have closed caption. Although some optional YouTube videos are not closed captioned, as technology progresses it is expected that all videos will have closed captions. One area that the instructor will need to consider is the use of color font; the instructor uses blue highlighting for quotes from Supreme Court cases or the readings when she wants students to focus on particular words or sentences from the assigned materials in the SoftChalk lessons. Blue may be a difficult color for some visually impaired learners. The students generally enjoyed the course (the overall student evaluation mean was a 4.71 out of 5, with a mode of 5.0). However, the students stated that their least favorite part of the course was the extensive amount of reading and time that they had to devote to their learning. Nonetheless, the instructor expects students to read at the graduate level and although a “first-time” graduate student might be surprised by the expectation, the instructor has developed materials that are appropriate for the level of instruction and outcomes of the course. When asked how this online course compared with other online courses that the students had completed, the majority said that it was better (two out of four) or the same (one out of four) as other online courses. One student clarified his or her assessment: “It was better because the class had different tools on blackboard that would engage us with students like voice thread. It was harder because voice thread was hard to use because it was tricky learning how to submit things on it.”

Faculty can use a variety of materials to enhance the educational experience and enable students to apply their knowledge, have engaging discussions, engage with their peers and the materials, and have activities that promote the achievement of learning outcomes. For example:

• Faculty can add their “voice” to their PowerPoints or Adobe presentations.

• Faculty can include short video clips and enhanced learning materials.

• Faculty can have self-examinations to ensure students are actively learning.

According to Bernard et al. (2009), engagement activities play an important role on the effectiveness of online instruction through basic engagement techniques that promote “student to educator,” “student to student” and “student to material” active learning and interaction.

Every university has a learning platform which will house the online course. A comparison of the various platforms is beyond the scope of this article but faculty who teach online must become familiar with the platform’s features to maintain and promote course materials and tools. Learning platforms such as Blackboard could “harness the potential range of instructional delivery technologies” (Sammel et al., 2014, p. 107). A great advantage of Blackboard is its capability to integrate with content from publishers as well as third party technology applications seamlessly. This seamless access allows faculty the ability to integrate elements into their lessons to further support their learning outcomes. As online pedagogical tools change and are upgraded, care must to taken to ensure that the learning platform’s changes can adapt to the changing technology needs and requirements. As pedagogical tools become dated, it is incumbent on the faculty member to continually maintain and upgrade materials to ensure that new students get the best online course possible.

The selection of instructional technology tools to promote active learning, interaction, and collaboration in online courses is not an easy task and should not be done in isolation. Most institutions of higher education hire instructional technologists that are armed with the knowledge to assist in the adoption and implementation process of learning technologies. The first step toward any adoption is the recognition that online learning is a significantly different pedagogical domain than those that take place when faculty and students are in the same space at the same time. The recognition of online learning as a pedagogical domain was first proposed by Michael Grahame Moore in his theory of transactional distance (Moore & Anderson, 2003). Therefore, the second step in the adoption process is the realization that the use of technology will support not substitute the learning experience. According to the U.S. Department of Education (2010), the learning experience is categorized as follows:

• expository instruction—digital devices transmit knowledge;

• active learning—the learner builds knowledge through inquiry-based manipulation of digital artifacts such as online drills, simulations, games, or microworlds; and

• interactive learning—The learner builds knowledge through inquiry-based collaborative interaction with other learners; teachers become co-learners and act as facilitators.

Consequently, technology tools adopted by the authors’ institution for use in online courses must support the learning experience of our students. The following list of tools describe some of the advantages and documented weaknesses of commonly used tools.

VoiceThread is a cloud-based communication application that allows the instructor and students to upload a presentation (assignment) in different formats such as PowerPoint slides, images, and video; in addition to the various formatted presentations, class participants can add comments and engage in a dialog (VoiceThread, 2018). In addition, participants are able to share the presentation with peers in the same class or export them to other applications for public consumption or archival purposes. VoiceThread’s commenting feature enhances asynchronous communication and offers an engaging platform other than text-heavy discussion boards. The comments can be audio, video, or written submissions. Faculty and students are allotted 60 minutes for audio and video comments and 10 minutes for phone comments with faculty retaining control on the time limit. It is suggested that students limit their initial comments to 2 minutes so as to allow peers and faculty to move a discussion along. Both faculty and students have reported an ease of use with respect to the commenting feature with only a few graduatelevel students showing reservations to video comments (preferring written or audio responses). Similar to other cloudbased applications, VoiceThread is constantly being updated and has recently added a grading function (VoiceThread, 2018). The software is fairly easy to use and provides faculty much needed flexibility to create and revise assignments anywhere, anytime. In this regard, the online discussions can be used in foreign language online classes to ensure that students can communicate verbally and it may even empower students to use their own voices for self-expression and self-reflection (Lee, 2014).

For criminal justice students, the class discussions can be limited to the students in a class and housed within the course learning platform (e.g., Blackboard) for security. Documented weaknesses obtained from internal surveys conducted by one of the authors of this paper revealed the need for faculty training on the creation of VoiceThread assignments and subsequent technical support on the recreation and duplication of assignments from one semester to the next. In addition, students seem to be better equipped to use VoiceThread after watching a short orientation on how to submit their assignments. We suggest that faculty work with their technical online learning teams to set up the discussion threads, load PowerPoints or video presentations, and ensure that students are set up for using this online course feature.

Students in the online Law and Criminal Justice course are expected to join a discussion several times per day, Monday through Thursday. On the first two days of the week, the discussion pertains to that unit’s materials (readings, cases, lecture materials) and respond to the instructor and peer comments. The instructor is not interested in long-winded regurgitation of the readings; the instructor expects students to analyze the materials and contextualize the application of law. Although some students do respond to the daily questions posed by the instructor by “reciting” the readings or lecture materials, most students explore their own knowledge of law and the criminal justice process. Some students in the course are in law enforcement and the course provides them with an opportunity to learn more about the connections among the courthouse work group and how the criminal justice system operates from a philosophical perspective and from a practical context. The instructor and students do not shy away from discussion of the Times Up, Black Lives Matter, and other social movements which challenge the legal system to respond to the needs of diverse communities. Student evaluations of the course indicate that the Voice Thread discussions were an important aspect of student learning:

What I liked most about the course is:

• the class was highly interactive and although I never got to meet any of the other students face-to-face I felt that I got to know them very well because of virtual thread. Virtual Thread was a much better learning tool than the discussion board;

• professor encourage to daily participate on voice thread and she participates as well.

• Dr. X engaged with the class more than expected; and

• very responsive and attentive to students.

SoftChalk is a cloud-based content authoring tool that facilitates the creation of interactive, engaging, lesson content for their online courses (SoftChalk, 2018). Soft-Chalk is a lesson builder that allows faculty flexibility to structure their lesson’s content any way they please and the ability to bring in a variety of resources to support the lesson objectives. These resources may be in the form of text, images, audio, video, and interactive games and may be accessed by students based on their learning style. In essence, the faculty member designs a learning environment that takes students from where they are and moves them through the learning they need to achieve. Most importantly, SoftChalk provides students the ability to self-regulate their learning by allowing faculty to integrate “Check for Understanding” activities at different intervals in the lesson. The inclusion of self-regulation strategies in online courses is listed as one of the best practices in online teaching strategies by the Hanover Research Council (2009).

A very popular structuring concept among our faculty has to do with chunking information into appropriate sizes for students to understand and build upon. For the developmental faculty member, the goal is to engage students no more than 15 minutes at a time and to present information in a variety of formats. This helps make the material easier to learn and breaks larger concepts down into a manageable size. The concept of chunking has also been adopted by our university to introduce our library through a comprehensive, interactive guide to remedy freshman library use issues. This guide introduces students to library resources, search terms and library databases, source evaluation, and citations.

SoftChalk is quite popular among our social sciences and university college freshman and developmental courses. One of the authors of this paper regularly uses SoftChalk rather than PowerPoint, Adobe, or other lecture-presentation methods of instruction. Although it can take a significant amount of time for a faculty member to develop the online instruction lectures in SoftChalk, the end result is, in our opinion, better than a simple PowerPoint display. SoftChalk lectures allow faculty to type their lectures so that the “voice” of the faculty member is evident. Too, the slide presentation can be shortened from 20+ slides to 5 or 6 without losing information. The faculty member can place a longer analysis of a point, link to external webbased materials, embed video, and include self-examinations or quizzes within each SoftChalk lesson. One of this article’s authors started using SoftChalk about 7 years ago. She started with the basic information needed to convey the class material, and then added web links, embedded videos, pictures, and charts. When asked for input, faculty acknowledged a steep learning curve and, until recently, their inability to edit their lessons from anywhere other than the university campus. This concern has been remedied by our institution moving to SoftChalk cloud. By having lessons in SoftChalk cloud, lessons are immediately edited and linked to the existing course. What we like about having the materials saved in cloud is the ability to refine materials from term to term and ensure that they are current. In addition, the editing function in SoftChalk cloud is very easy to use and makes course updates simple. By adding “bells and whistles” as the course moves from term to term, the faculty member can improve on the course materials and ensure student learning and interest.

In the graduate class, the instructor is able to link to external publications and videos. For example, she links the lecture that she creates in SoftChalk to Blackstone’s Commentaries, Marx’s das Capital, and Holmes’s The Common Law. The Soft-Chalk lecture then applies and explains the ideas and concepts while directing students to particular sections of readings in highlighted text. Materials are updated to ensure that a contemporary issue that has arisen can be used in the course. When discussing the development of the common law and the movement to statutory construction, the instructor used changes from rape to sexual assault as an example with hyperlinks to materials on rape law and charges levied against a police officer.

In addition, the instructor uses self-checks at the end of each SoftChalk lesson to provide students with an opportunity to apply their learning. She uses games (crossword puzzle), multiple choice questions, matching a term with its definition, and other types of activities from SoftChalk to make the lesson more interactive and “fun.”

Web 2.0 are Internet tools that allow the user to go beyond just receiving information through the web. The user is expected to interact and to create content with others. Social media sites such as Facebook, wikis, blogs, Twitter, and YouTube are examples of Web 2.0 tools. Web tools can be used to enhance teaching and collaboration among teachers and students as well as increase professional collaboration between educators (Thomas & Thomas, 2012) and can facilitate the development of online communities, allowing for collaborative and participatory engagement by placing emphasis on collective knowledge and social interaction (Maloney, 2007; Wodzicki, Schwämmlein, & Moskaliuk, 2012). Although these tools are prevalent in the lives of our students, careful consideration should be given to the role these tools play in the learning environment and to students’ perceived invasion of privacy. According to Salmon, Ross, Pechenkina, and Chase (2015, p. 3) social media “distorts the boundaries between their online social and educational worlds, between social and informal and formal spaces, and between public and private spaces.” Students who are expected to use these tools must be provided with the tools’ privacy policies and be given an opportunity to determine if they want to participate in the online social interaction. If the students opt out, then alternative assignments and group interactions should be developed. We have not found any students wishing to opt out of social media assignments yet, but if the students decide to protect their privacy then the faculty should bend to the students’ requests. Many criminal justice employees (police officers, for example) may be asked to eliminate their social media presence for security reasons, thus some students may have to opt out of these assignments. One way to prevent a privacy issue concern is to have the social media site have limited access to only the students in the class.

In the graduate course, the instructor reminds students to protect their privacy. The university has links for all online tools to the company’s privacy policy and students are directed to read these policies. In addition, students do not have to use their photo in the course (they can use an avatar or other picture) to identify themselves in the VoiceThread discussions. No students have opted out of the discussion thread and these threads are closed to the public; only course students, the faculty member, and the online learning team member have access to the course. Fortunately, students are respectful of each other’s points of view, and discussions are thoughtful. If police officers mention something that occurred to them, they do not identify the suspects involved.

The use of web tools at our institution is primarily restricted to those available inside our Blackboard learning system in the form of wikis and blogs. The limitation is due primarily to the ease of integration and “containment” of the tool within the realm of class. Wikis allow students to contribute, track, and edit individual postings in an easy to navigate, searchable interface. Blogs and wikis seem to be the preferred tools for self-reflection activities primarily in English Lit and educator preparation courses. Self-reflecting is a central concept in metacognitive learning in which students are encouraged to construct explanations, pose questions, and provide further information to each other (Cohen & Scardamalia, 1998). In many instances, students are asked to keep a personal journal to capture their experiences while participating in field or service learning experiences. The use of Facebook also provides a platform for collaboration, discussion, and sharing of experiences while participating in study abroad trips. Feedback obtained from a faculty member at our institution who has repeatedly used Facebook during his study abroad trips stresses the importance of a closed group Facebook page so only those students enrolled in the class are able to participate. In his opinion, the use of Facebook has enhanced and enriched his French class due to its ease of use and the fact that almost every student in his class has a Facebook account. As an added bonus there is an archival collection of the cultural experience readily accessible for retrieval. One of this article’s authors had students in a face-to-face class develop a short public service announcement about human trafficking. The students developed a clear explanation of the offense, explained who is targeted, and interviewed the director of an agency that works with victims. Once the announcement was approved, the students decided to post it on YouTube to warn youth about human trafficking and to promote a local social service, antihuman trafficking agency. It is evident that new Web 2.0 technologies provide opportunities for creating learning experiences that extend the possibilities of online learning.

Online education requires faculty and university offices to work together to provide effective online instruction. Read and post classes are a thing of the past and should not be continued if we are to ensure that our students develop the skill sets that will make them marketable when they graduate. Although some programs and their faculty may be worried about the time and cost associated with online education, once faculty begin to understand how learning outcomes and online course tools can benefit academic learning, they will understand the benefits to providing an online course. To be clear, online education may not be appropriate for every professor or for every class. Faculty who offer online instruction must know their limitations as a professor and develop their course over time. It is difficult to offer an online class for the first time while the class is being taught. One of the authors of this paper developed and taught an online class last year because the initial faculty member assigned to the course dropped out. Developing and teaching an online course simultaneously is tedious and onerous. Nonetheless, with assistance from the Office of Instructional Technology and diligence, the class went off well.

We recommend that you continually avail yourself of the latest technology to develop a strong and inviting class. Remember that online tools are constantly evolving and you do not have to add everything at one time. Develop the core of the materials, and then add the bells and whistles as you go from term to term. We encourage you to be inventive and allow your students to help you explore new learning tools. We also encourage you to work with your technology office to learn more about new tools and to go to teaching workshops to enhance your current skillset. You have to trust your instincts about what is working and what is not working and adjust the course if you have to respond to technology issues as they arise.

In summary, faculty should do the following:

• create effective learning outcomes and measures that reflect the goals of the course;

• create materials that engage students to read, write, debate, analyze, evaluate, and/or collaborate in online learning: educator to student, student to student, student to materials;

• get mentored when initially learning how to develop and teach online classes in order to use effective online pedagogy;

• provide access to technology and provide information on privacy policies for technology used in the class to students.

• connect students with services and materials for diverse learners; and

• provide for the needs of diverse learners.

Once you are familiar with online tools and pedagogy, offer a class and develop it in advance of the course offering, if feasible. Then, revise your class term to term, enhance your materials, and refine the course. Once you are adept at online instruction, become a mentor for other faculty and share the successes and weaknesses of the approaches and tools that you have used. Most importantly, have fun!