10 reasons you should be web-enhancing your courses

Web-enhancing courses isn’t really new. In fact, most of the professors at my institution web-enhance their classes to some degree or another. Interestingly, the ones who refuse come from a pretty wide demographic.

For clarity, a web-enhanced course is simply a traditionally taught course that has an online “classroom space” that the professor uses to supplement the class. It is not the same as a hybrid course where some is taught online and some is delivered in the classroom.

Originally this list was going to have five until I realized that there were a lot more than five reasons that you should web-enhance your class.

Basic Info, 24/7

1.     The primary reason a class gets enhanced is simply to find a place to store basic information like the syllabus, the gradebook and attendance. This is a great place to start and certainly a major bonus to web-enhanced classes. Having that information means that you have made essential information available to the student 24/7. That quells a lot of problems that start with the phrase “I didn’t know . . . “

Classroom Expansion

2.     The web-space for your course essentially becomes a secondary portion of your actual classroom. How often and in what way a student interacts with the online segment of your course is up to you and should be clearly outlined in the syllabus. In my enhanced classes I have done everything from posting notes and links, building “further discussion” boards where students can weigh in a topic after class, I have even posted photos of the white board when lecture was particularly complicated.

Gradebook Access

3.     Most students are worried about their grades. All of the time. I remember waiting for grades from different classes as a student and frankly, it sucked. As a professor I know that you spread yourself around as much as you can and sometimes you can get that stack of papers graded right away and sometimes you just cant. But having a digital grade book gives you a couple advantages. First, your students know what they got on every assignment as soon as you post the grade, but they also have a record of all their prior grades and the calculations so far. For you it gives you all of this information in one location and you don’t even have to use a calculator.

Assignment Storehouse

4.     Whether or not I ask students to turn in a paper copy of their assignment, I always ask them to submit an electronic copy. This covers them in case of some sort of e-mergency. It also gives me a lexicon of work that belongs to each student even after I have given their papers back. If I need to compare notes for one student or across a section or across semesters, I have all of the assignments and work at my fingertips.

Portability

5.     Once you start taking advantages of web-enhancing and start using it more, you will be able to enjoy one of the best things about web-enhancing a course, portability. I can meet with a student during office hours, in class right after lecture, and even out at the grille. In a couple of seconds we can pull up the course and access almost any information that I might need to counsel the student on the questions they have. Not just that but as I do it, I am showing them how to find the same information on their own. We all win.

Course Evolution

6.     When you document your course the way that you can with web-enhancing you have the advantage of having all of the outcomes of multiple classes over several semesters line up with parallel organizational structures. You can look over all of your courses and see trends in what is and what isn’t working. You can also save assignments that you might only occasionally use. With all the evidence of prior versions of your course documented, you can really steer the evolution of your course.

Classroom/Real World Integration

7.     Your class probably meets one-three times a week in the same classroom at the same time. Your students come in, engage, and then leave. Routine. Somewhere outside of class meeting time they study on their own. By shaping the web-enhanced structure of your course, you can find ways to engage them outside the structure and routine of your traditional classroom. Try connecting things from their real world and stuff from your course work, make them deliver it to the class in a discussion. Whenever you can weave your course material through the structure of their day-to-day you have a much better chance of getting it to stick!

Because Students Need Computer Skills!

8.     Computer skills are important. There is just no way these kids are getting out of here and spending any amount of time in the real world without having a computer near by. I think of it this way. Writing is important. In Theatre Appreciation the students don’t learn writing BUT they write about stuff. I am concerned with the stuff they are writing about. Do I need to be concerned with how they write? Yes. And we should be concerned that we are putting our students in situations where they are engaging with other people in all sorts of ways, including virtually.  Everything from application navigation to online etiquette can be experienced in the web-enhanced course. That’s not being cruel to students who don’t know how to use a computer, it’s us doing them a favor.

A Safe Gathering Place

9.     Students often have reasons to talk to each other. They don’t always want to exchange personal contact info. Sometimes they want to form study groups or have to work in groups on a project. By creating an online space, students can interact with one another within the arena of your classroom. I like to set up an online study discussion board for big exams and it’s pretty easy to set up individualized boards for students in groups to discuss during the times when they can’t meet.

Going Paperless

10. Probably my favorite reason to web-enhance my classes is how much paper it cuts down on. I would love to say that my motives are 100% green and earth-friendly, but just as valuable to me is how much paper it keeps off my desk. The more I can grade and return assignments online the less likely they are to become part of or get buried in the glacier of papers that tend to consume my desk. Everyone organizes in different ways, but web-enhancing has helped me organize student work and my own class materials in a whole new, very productive way.

So there you have it. Ten good reasons. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Heck, I still do, all the time.

Tags: ANGEL, Blackboard, distance learning, Online Learning, web-enhanced