Using Technology to Teach on the Web

What was the problem that got you started using technology in your classroom?
I came to SUNY Plattsburgh in the fall of 1973 as a molecular cell biologist who studies how our bodies counter virus infections. I got started in technology in 1982. I had been working as the director of the In Vitro Cell Biology and Biotechnology Program at the W. Alton Jones Cell Science Center, a research institute in Lake Placid, which was 70+ miles from campus. I needed to be in touch with people and access to information, but I was removed from campus, colleagues, and our library. Technology helped me solve the problem of "being remote" -- I started using email on an old 80/88.

What problems motivated you to continue to explore the uses of technology in your classroom?
One problem I tackled was how to be able to add course content to survey courses that have very set, structured, and full curricula. The full curriculum of a survey course leaves little room to add anything without dropping something. I asked myself if there was a way to use technology to allow me to add things to a course that I considered appropriate, not just for the sake of sticking them in, but without having to subtract something from the things that needed to be covered in the course. And indeed it there was. That is how I got into the use of the web. In early 1994 I began putting course materials up on the web. I could post information for students that I would then not have to cover in the classroom. That meant that if I could put up 50% of my content on the web, that released 30 minutes in the classroom that I could do other things. So technology was enabling me to do things that I was being restricted by given by the structure of the survey course.

Another exampleÑI had contacts with people who wanted to be able to participate in my course, but weren't able to make the day and times scheduled. Through the use of technology, I solved this problem in the early days by using listservs or conferencing systems--today I have the web and the use of desktop video conferencing systems. This technology has allowed me to accommodate things and people I would not have been able to other wise. We are able to do a lot more because of the flexibility that technology gives us. That for me is the key word. It allows me to be more flexible in what I am doing.

What have you gained in your classroom as a result of this flexibility?
There are different ways to do teaching and learning. Technology opens up our very concepts of what it is to teach and learn and expands, facilitates, or enables those ways. The use of technology in the delivery of information becomes important in how it can enable me to extend and enhance my classroom.

It is about flexibility, practicality, access, and pedagogy. For example, on the web I can archive my slides or visual and audio material that then makes those materials available to any student in the class 24 hours a day 7 days a week-- not just for the few moments it is used in the traditional class.

It is another way I extend my classroom. I don't have to worry about lending slides out, or having enough copies for everyone, or about the pace of showing materials for slower learners. It is about giving the student as many options for learning --for interaction with the materials-- as possible. Technology is an option. I tell my students that they have a variety of combinations of options to get the material for my class--the books, the library, the class, the web. . . A single option may not be right for every student, but giving options affords us the flexibility of not having to restrict ourselves and not having to restrict the learning.

Here's another option. I think we need to begin to think outside the box of the semester. Why can't we allow students to stop and start and allow students to finish at their own pace? That is what distance is all about. It is the flexibility.

So, are you an advocate of distance learning?
I never started out, nor will I ever be a distance or remote teacher. I don't intend to teach 100-200 students online. That is not where I come from. I want to keep my classroom. But, I will take on 4 or 5 online students. I offer my class Bio 407A Immunology to anyone and any number of students can take this section. And I meet with them face-to-face on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Bio 407B Immunology is the same course with a cap of five students. The only students who can take Section B are those who cannot be physically here on campus. The reason for the cap is that those additional five students don't increase my workload. The work that I do for my traditional students who are online with me as well as in the classroom with me twice a week is not increased by the addition of five completely online students. Imagine the exponential growth of enrollments for SUNY if all faculty took on a couple of online students.

Back in the 80's I just thought about my classroom. Today I think K-80. That is the market place. Today, we are no longer looking at one profession that one goes to school for and can ultimately retire from. That has changed. There is a continuum of education, or life-long learning that continues and changes as professions and technologies evolve and change.

If only 25% of all SUNY faculty took on a couple of online students, we could extend the solid SUNY education and learning opportunities that we work so hard to offer to that enormous K-80 market.

What do you say to faculty who are concerned about the movements to increase the use of technology in the traditional teaching and learning processes?
I think we have to listen and learn from all perspectives. Faculty insight into these issues can shed light and force us to consider broader implications, or to see things more clearly. In general, I respond to these concerns by acknowledging that we are all used to the same time/same location traditional classroom. And that I don't believe the traditional classroom will ever go away. This is very important. I think faculty worry most about how technology will replace the traditional classroom. But institutions of education, universities, are not just the deliverers of information. . .they have to create. Educational institutions are the centers for that creation, they are where information is created by all of us as educators and consequently they will never go away.

How would you characterize your use of technology in your teaching?
It has been an evolution. There is an acronym used by the New Dimensions project to describe the evolutionary stages that faculty go through to integrate the use of technology to enhance their teaching -- PPAC, Preserve, Procure, Adapt, Create. At the first stage a faculty person is looking at technology to supplement, enhance, or extend their teaching and preserve what they do in their traditional classroom that is working. The next stage involves procuring products, software and hardware, to try out in class. This is followed by adapting those things procured to make them better, more appropriate, more integrated with needs of the faculty member and his or her class. Creating an application to meet a need is the final stage. The evolution of my use of technology has been motivated by trying to solve problems that have come up for me in my work and in the classroom.

I try something, make mistakes, and then improve it. If something doesn't work, I drop it or modify it and try again, or if it works to some degree, I change it to make it better. Nothing has ever worked perfectly the first time. I think of it as an evolutionary process.

Describe the evolution of your use of technology in your classroom?
The evolution of my use of technology has been motivated by trying to solve problems that have come up for me in my work and in the classroom. In 1982 it was about contact and access. I used email technology to solve the problem of "being remote" to campus, info., and people. I also used email to allow students to ask me questions anytime, anyplace. If they had a question on Saturday afternoon, I could get back to them during the weekend from home, rather than having to wait 'til the next class. Gradually, I began to use email in advance. I would send the students a question via email and have them reply back. In the mid 80's I began using listservs, or email distribution lists. The listserv circulated messages among the students in the class. They could hear what each other had to say, and it broke down barriers for students who in a traditional classroom would hesitate or not contribute.

As technology changed, I began using the conferencing systems like VAX Notes in 1988-89. With these systems I began to be able to put up content. It allowed the organization of topics and the ability to direct students around the topics. So, from email I moved to conferencing systems, then went into Gopher. The reason I went to Gopher was access. To use VAX Notes you had to be running a VAX, running VAX Notes, and you had to have an account on the system. It wasn't really public, with anywhere/anytime access. Gopher really opened the first public access to information. That public access really did it. It also allowed for collaboration and cooperation. The classroom enlarged to include other institutions, other students, and other instructors. The limits to Gopher were that it was text-based. It had reasonable navigation for the end user, but it wasn't multimedia. The web has given me a classroom environment., particularly with the advent of course management tools like TopClass.

The web enables me to do not just text, but sound, images, and video. It has opened up our first peek of a classroom over wire in full multimedia mode. It became the environment of choice for me because with it I am now able to show cells as they move within a system to attack things that don't belong there, rather than being limited to word descriptions and hoping the students can imagine and visualize it from my words. I got started with the web in 1993. My approach is to focus on how to infuse this technology into my teaching and learning environment where it is appropriate.

Technology has continued to enable me to do things better than I had been doing and to do things that I had previously not been able to do. When I first got started with the web I would post course materials and I would go to class. Two years ago I had a student ask me, "Why do you come to class and say the same things you put on the web?" By this student's reaction I realized that my just taking what I do in the classroom and making it electronic didn't change anything. The light bulb went on for me. I realized that I had to do things differently.

So what did you change, or what do you do differently now as a result?
I use technology, not to mirror, or replicate, what I do in the classroom, but to support, enhance, and extend my classroom. If I can gain 30 minutes of classroom time, by putting announcements, tests, and quizzes on the web, that is 30 more minutes that I can spend with my students teaching. What I do now in my classes is put the information up on the web, let them look at it and think about it, and then using online discussion groups, have them write back on Sunday by 8pm the answers to two questions based on the assigned content areas: textbook, library, journals, and coming to class. The questions are: what is the main thing you learned this week? And, what is the one remaining question you still have. What I then do is read those between Sunday and when class next meets. Based on what they ask or write about, that is what will determine what I will talk about in class that week. More often than not what I end up talking about is what they think they know, or what they have misunderstood, in addition to what they have said they don't know.

Describe how you use technology today in your classroom?
There are three modalities of what I call deliveries of instruction, traditional face-to-face classrooms, partial online in which one or more of the scheduled meeting times are conducted over wire, and full online where one is entirely in contact via technology and never face-to-face. My traditional classroom courses are supplemented by asynchronous computer-mediated opportunities. I also conduct some of my courses in the partial online modality, and in the case of Bio 407B, I take on 4 or 5 completely online students. Technology is a component of all my courses. To participate in the web components of my classes, my students interact with tools that allow them to get mail from an internal mail system, the purpose of which is to enhance the communication between the members in the course. They can get announcements from me. In fact, I force that use of the technology. That way I don't have to give up any of my class time to make announcements. They also get access to the discussion group. I use it for the weekly discussion of content. I monitor that discussion and respond to it in class, but the students end up tutoring each other, essentially, in these discussions, on what they know, think they understand, or need more help with. I follow this with instructions to read the course or unit introductory material on the web, interact with some web resources produced by the textbook publisher, an animation, perhaps, read the textbook, come back to the web to cover my support materials, respond to the two questions in the discussion, and then come to class. My full online students partner with a traditional student and work with me via email and a separate discussion group to get that part that they miss. Hard reliable data on the effect of technology to improve or "better" learning is lacking. But, it is clear to me that technology brings access and flexibility, and that opens doors to learning.

What special equipment or training do your students need to take your class?
To participate in my course students need to know how to use a word processor and a web browser. They also need access to the Internet via the web. The off campus students will have to pay $12-20 dollars a month for this access. I devote maybe two class sessions to explaining what the students will need to know to access the web components of the course. Anything more I handle on an as needed basis. If they have questions, they can send me an email. The on campus students have the advantage of using the campus facilities for their Internet service.

When you go online it is going to be more work period. That is true both for the instructor and for the student. It is a lot of work. The student cannot be passive online. If they are passive, they are not there, if they are not there they get a zero. The student needs to be educated about that.

How do your students like this approach?
They really like it. They may not be comfortable with it in the beginning. They all come with pads and pencils ready to write like you wouldnÕt believe, because they expect that in a classroom. I just tell them that they don't have to write. It is all up there on the web, all the content. They can print it out, save it to disk, they can do what ever they want. In class they come to listen and participate. Access and flexibility are some the key things about my class that my students like. If they can't make it to class, today, it is not as essential as it was in the past. The content is always up on the web and there are opportunities for group and individual discussions available on the web so they can catch up with me and the rest of the class. I partner my virtual students with traditional students -- and they love this. It has worked tremendously. The partnership helps the virtual student feel less remote, like they are really part of the class. By partnering them they get to really know each other.

This came as a suggestion from a student. My students respond most positively to the flexibility. I do evaluations at mid term and at the end of the course. But it is the midterm eval that is most important. I ask students for feedback. From my perspective it is the opportunity to look at what is working, what isn't, and to show change. I do them at mid term for a very specific reason. I want this feedback midway through so I can pick one thing to improve that I agree with and that is suggested by a student. I want the class that identifies a problem to see that problem resolved or improved. If you wait to implement the change in the next class, then they will never see it. The technology allows me to get feedback, consider a change, and then implement it. Boy, that alone wins the students over. They really see that the technology is flexible, that you are adaptable, that they have something worth saying and to contribute, and that they are listened to. That is what I think technology enables.

The accessibility and the opportunity for interaction are also very highly rated by students. I now also have students taking on an average of 10 out of 15 self-assessment opportunities. In the past I had to give up class time to do these quizzes, and then when I had them available at the computer lab, students did an average of 2 out of the 15. So you can see that the more readily available the opportunities to interact, the evidence supports that students will take advantage of them. I gotta believe that will have a positive impact on their learning.

Is there any problem you haven't been able to solve?
Testing was a challenge. I am now doing timed exams on the web. The test turns on at seven and turns off at ten on the day of my choosing. My tests are problem solving. There is no one answer. By using technology to deliver my tests, I now don't have to give up my class time for testing.

I haven't resolved the problem of verification, though. It is still not possible to insure that the person on the other end of the wire submitting the test, or paper, is the one enrolled in the class. However, it is important to note that this is an issue in traditional classrooms as well.

What kind of support have you gotten for your endeavors?
Without the support I've received, my "webolution" would not have been possible. I have to mention Sharon Gallagher and Jean Neidhardt, from the SUNY Training Center, and particularly Chris Haile at OET, and my campus and our academic vice president, Tom Moran. I could not have done what I am doing without their support. I would not have had the resources or the time. They supported and enabled me at every step. My work and relationship with OET has been a tremendous experience for me. There are great faculty doing wonderful things with technology around SUNY, and the Office of Educational Technology is channeling more resources to support that. I can only end by saying that my experience has been so rewarding and rejuvenating that I am going to retire with a smile on my face.

What advice would you give faculty who are considering the use of technology?
Begin by asking yourself what would you like to do more of and can technology enable it. Can technology enable you to do something, to do something better, or to give it a different slant? Then start with an objective that you can achieve. Do it gradually. I started by putting my announcements up. I had a transition period during which I made the announcements both in class and on the web and gradually transitioned to making the class announcements exclusively on the web. What technology did for me was to make me revisit what I was doing and how I was doing it in my pedagogy. That is really healthy and I think that technology forces you to do that more often than you normally would. It is important to think about technology as an option rather than the sole mediator of information. In my courses content is delivered through the textbook that I use, via the library and journals articles that I assign, electronically via the content I put up on the web, and by coming to class. My role is not to teach what I know, but to teach my students how I came to know what I know. And this is true for all educators irrespective of the discipline. If I can teach this process, my students will never forget and they will become life-long learners.

Bill Graziadei was interviewed by CLTnews editor, Alexandra Pickett. A print version of this interview was published in CLTnews, Volume 2, Number 4, Fall 1997. CLTnews is SUNY-Wide Technology-related Newsletter.