If you are the first person to develop and offer an online course in your setting, what things should concern you? Does technology reduce the gap between the haves and the have-nots? Is technology inherently good or bad? Will online learning raise or lower the cost of education (or neither)? What are the consequences of too heavy a workload for students and faculty? Are all instructors capable of being good online teachers? Are some people likely to learn better online than from traditional means? These are just a few of the questions found in Online Education: Learning and Teaching in Cyberspace. Probably one of the things I like best about it are the questions raised, over and above the answers given.
I have known of Greg Kearsley’s work for the last decade or more. He is not only an experienced online educator, but has designed, developed, delivered, managed, and evaluated other forms of distance education as well. So when I heard about his newest book, Online Education, I was eager to review it, knowing Kearsley’s work would demonstrate once again his formidable theoretical knowledge and practical skills. I also anticipated he would take a pedagogical perspective. I was not disappointed.
In the Preface, Kearsley states that this book is not about computers, or how to develop online courses, or how to hook up computers to the Internet. Rather, it is about teaching and learning. As such, the book is primarily for in-service and preservice teachers.
In Chapter 1, only two pages are spent on the history of computers. This is not a bad thing, because knowing the history of computers is not very useful in exploring teaching and learning online as it exists today. In fact, I believe the history of communication would probably be more useful than the history of computers. What Kearsley does instead is take the reader on a tour of online sites that illustrate the themes he sees as shaping online education.
Kearsley lists nine themes that he believes will shape not only online education, but teaching and learning as well: (1) collaboration, (2) connectivity, (3) student-centeredness, (4) unboundedness, (5) community, (6) exploration, (7) shared knowledge, (8) multisensory experience, and (9) authenticity. Note that these themes, presumably gathered through Kearsley’s experience, do not have much to do with technology per se. Clearly, these are themes that all educators have been discussing, not only those who are involved in online learning. The point is, in large part, technology serves as a catalyst for making decisions about what one believes is good teaching and learning. Only after those issues are debated with others and conclusions drawn, is one ready to design technologyenhanced learning.
Chapter 2 summarizes the diverse venues for educational applications; K-12 schools, higher education, corporate and government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and the home are mentioned as places for online education. The author's conclusion is that just because these opportunities exist does not mean they will be used effectively in the service of teaching and learning. The remainder of the book serves to help the reader with what is known about making online education work. I would like to have seen a concise definition of online education. While the first two chapters, and indeed the entire book, gives examples and characterization of this concept, there appears to be no formal definition. Although defining online education is as difficult as defining education itself, I think doing so would help many readers.
From e-mail, threaded discussions, realtime conferencing, MUDs/MOOs, audiographics, groupware, file transfer, to desktop video, Chapter 3 surveys the variety of forms of online education. Used alone or in combination, the challenge is to choose media according to their strengths and costs to meet the instructional goals and objectives. At the same time, the instructor or designer must reduce the limitations of all media selected so as to foster student learning.
Chapter 4 is a perspective on research about online education. While not getting mired in detail, the scope presented is comprehensive by suggesting a framework for viewing research as quite diverse and needing to be viewed at various levels, including individual achievement, course evaluation, organizational level impact, class-level interactions, and learning communities research. Research about online education, with a very few notable exceptions, is in its infancy, as is the field itself.
In my opinion, two of the strongest chapters in the book are on online learning and online teaching. In Chapter 5, Kearsley weaves theories about social learning, communication, engagement, and motivation with learning-to-learn and constructivist philosophy, to form a tapestry of what underlies online learning. Critical to online education is access to resources throughout the world. No longer is the instructor, armed with the textbook, the source of all content. As a result, there are now many more paths to learning than ever before. But, along with the greater student autonomy for learning comes a demand for greater student responsibility for their learning. Not exclusive to online education, these factors are promoted when technology enhances the opportunities presented each student working alone or collaboratively.
Chapter 6 discusses the role of the online teacher in terms of encouraging student participation and managing student interactivity in the online environment that is created. Kearsley points out that a primary task of the instructor is to provide feedback to students as needed. He also indicates that all these functions take more time online, both for the student and instructor. Increased workload for online teachers often becomes a significant issue.
While I agree with what is said about online teaching, I believe the case built here and elsewhere for online teaching being very different from in-person teaching is overstated. As noted above, the nine themes that Kearsley stated are driving online education are pedagogical in nature. To the extent that “traditional” teaching is teacher-centered with the teacher as expert, often using lecture as a teaching method, then the move to a learnercentered philosophy and practice is very different—whether this occurs online or in person is really not important. Elementary and secondary instruction has been changing toward a more learner-centered approach for the past decade and a half. The obstacle there, more than teaching philosophy, is the demand of state legislators for a content-centered curriculum. Any demand to teach less in-depth about more content will work against methods that are other than a very structured, teacher-centered approach.
Kearsley makes a similar conclusion at the end of Chapter 7 with regard to design and development of online courses:
Creating online courses is really no different from developing any other instructional materials—it requires a blend of creativity, ambition, self-discipline, and teamwork to produce a successful product. Indeed, the factors that determine the quality of online courses are the same as with conventional classes. (p. 106)
Chapter 7 offers other sage advice pertaining to course design and development, form, function, course documentation, integrating online course activities with offline activities, the authoring process, and critical aspects of course quality. I would agree with Kearsley’s observation that a team approach is normally needed in the development of online courses involving contributions from specialists in instructional design, graphics or multimedia design, and systems analysts or programmers. Even if one individual has the range of skills and knowledge to develop an online course, that person rarely has the time or desire to go it alone. Chapter 11 relates to Chapter 7 by offering more advice about developing online courses. One should develop the first online course from an existing, successful offering so that the content doesn’t need to be debugged along with the delivery system. At the same time, the need exists to ensure that network connections are available and budget is provided for other network costs such as facilities, technical support, and software.
In Chapter 8, the author highlights changes within an organization, brought about in part through the use of technology. These changes go beyond additions to infrastructure and support staff. Especially regarding the hierarchical, power relationships, changes occur regarding how people in the organization interact with each other. This is likely to cause change across the organization in the functions, policies, procedures, and leadership that occur. Ownership of electronic materials, quality control of online courses, student/faculty workloads, certification and accreditation, and acceptable use are policy issues covered in more depth in Chapter 9. On the matter of quality control, Kearsley starts by saying: One of the concerns that is shared by most faculty and administrators (as well as the public) about online courses is whether the quality of education is on a par with that of traditional on-campus classes. Research on the effectiveness of online courses, reviewed in Chapter 4, suggests that they can be just as effective, or more so, in terms of learning outcomes (p. 124). I believe this is true, but I would not lift up much of the traditional, on-campus classes as shining examples to strive for (and thus limit) our online education. Kearsley does go on to state that “research doesn’t address the question of whether a particular course is good” (p. 124). I would agree. In large part, it is the instructional design that determines quality—or at least puts a ceiling on how good the course can be. Certainly, poor materials development, poor delivery, or a dozen other variables in online education can cause a course to be less effective than it was designed to be. But that is true of in-person courses as well. Quality control starts by matching the instructional goals and objectives with authentic, real-world problems or projects. It continues through aligning the content, the practices in which students engage, and the evaluation with those objectives that have been determined for the course. Following these design principles sets the limits on the effectiveness (i.e., quality) of the course.
In Chapter 10, broad issues are raised about education in the information age. Access to technology, and the associated issue of the gap between the haves and have-nots, is probably the most significant. Others discussed in the chapter are whether technology is inherently good or evil (or neutral), privacy, costs and benefits, and resistance to change. Overall, more questions are raised in this chapter than answered—which is not necessarily bad.
A brief look into the future of online education is made in Chapter 12. Ubiquitous computing, intelligent software, and knowledge management will make computing more accessible and easier to use and will promote the capturing of experiences on a very large scale in ways that help us learn. The merging of cable television, telecommunication, and computing will greatly increase the amount of information available, and probably reduce the cost of using that information overall. Speech processing and automatic language translation will cause online learning to be more natural, while holding promise for reducing cultural barriers.
Even though Web pages tend to be here today and gone tomorrow, the recommended sites throughout the book are useful. Chapter 13 is a compilation of resources and an appendix highlights a dozen or so brief vignettes (case studies) from a variety of venues (e.g., higher education, business, community college). URLs are available for most of these resources so that interested readers may explore further.
The online site dedicated to this book is complete with a chat area for discussion with others interested in online teaching and learning, and is worthwhile exploring. The features of the book include plenty of screen captures, along with goals, key ideas, and questions for further reflection for each chapter. Also included are brief sidebars about leaders in the field such as Linda Harasim, Norman Coombs, Judi Harris, Curtis Bonk, Jason Ohler and several others, with online sources for more information for readers who are interested. Overall, the publisher did a nice job with layout and readability.
Recommendation
The book is easy to read, yet still says a lot. It is focused on K-12 schools and to a lesser extent on higher education, in the examples presented and general tone. Therefore, I think it would be most useful for in-service teachers who wish to take Kearsley’s suggestions throughout the book about sites to explore online. It is a practical manual in that regard.
As for preservice teachers and teacher educators, it could serve as a main textbook. Or, it could be used as a supplementary text to another of Kearsley’s books written with Michael Moore, Distance Education: A Systems Approach (Moore and Kearsley, 1996, Wadsworth). The decision on which of these books might supplement the other may depend on whether the reader’s focus is on distance education or the narrower sub-field of online education. Regardless, Online Education: Learning and Teaching in Cyberspace, is a fine stepping-stone for teachers seeking to frame their explorations of online teaching and learning.
