Online Courses Chart New Territory in Graduate Education
Dr. Paul E. Resta, Ruth Knight Milliken Centennial Professor of Curriculum & Instruction and Director of the Learning Technology Center in the College of Education, University of Texas at Austin, received grants from the University of Texas System in 1999 and 2000 for the development of three online courses for the System’s UT TeleCampus online Master’s of Education degree in Educational Technology. The UT TeleCampus provides a virtual campus at www.telecampus.utsystem.edu/ where students find information on admissions and registration and many of the other resources of a real campus. Courses are created and taught by the nationally-recognized faculty of the UT campuses.
The first course created at the LTC was “Instructional Technology Planning and Management.” This course taught students how to plan, implement, and manage instructional programs with an emphasis on the integration of information and communication technologies into instruction. It covered all aspects of technology planning for institutions, from vision plans and needs assessments, to funding and grant writing. The course was first taught in the Fall 1999 semester.
“Computer Supported Collaborative Learning Environments” was taught in the Fall 2000 semester. Students worked in teams to plan, conduct, and evaluate collaborative learning projects and activities. A third course on technology leadership was developed with Dr. Nolen Estes, L. D. Haskew Centennial Professor in Public School Administration, and was taught Fall 2001.
In these courses, Dr. Resta used the Web and state-of-the-art technology to create online learning communities and virtual “real world” settings to provide an authentic context and tasks for learning. For example, in the Instructional Technology Planning and Management course, virtual reality programming was used to create a school computer lab. Students “entered” the lab, looked around the room, took inventory of the hardware and software, and then completed a web-based inventory form. Role playing activities, in which students took the identities of various “stakeholders” such as parents and school board members, utilized online conferences and chats as issues were discussed and opinions stated.
The technology brought together both on-campus students and students throughout Texas and other states. Distant students worked on the course at their convenience; on-campus students took the course in a more traditional format but also used most of the same Web-based materials. Both groups were brought together several times during the semester when some of the campus classes were webcast (live video streamed over the Web). The online students communicated with the campus group and each other during the webcasts with conference calls and online chat.
Those assisting Dr. Resta in the development of these courses included Carolyn Awalt, Rue Domel, Cathy Jones, Theresa Jones, and Janie Wang.
The importance of distance learning will only grow more important in the years to come. Distance learning allows students to enroll in academic programs that might not be available in their area, vastly expanding available educational opportunities. Dr. Resta’s ground-breaking work with the UT TeleCampus is part of the College of Education’s overall commitment to the development of distance education and was recognized by the United States Distance Learning Association when they presented him the 2001 Excellence in Distance Learning Teaching Award for Higher Education.