Re: Blackboard (remote)

[John Clement <clement@HAL-PC.ORG>]

I wonder what they would say if they were told that live doctors are too
expensive and that their medical plan would only support virtual remote
medicine.  Of course any interaction with a live doctor would be extra.
This would include lab tests done by the doctor, routine physicals, and
surgery.

While it is possible to get conventional results from a remote course
(electronic or correspondence), you are right that it is not possible to do
much interactive engagement.  Concep questions will not work and regular
labs are impossible.  It is possible to do some things using web
simulations, but they are not entirely well developed enough.  For example
the RTP or TST human motion labs can be translated into mouse motions.  See:
http://www.hal-pc.org/~clement/science.htm for some mouse motion
replacements for motion detectors in TST labs.

One could use physlets to write replacements or fairly equivalent
simulations to other TST/RTP labs.  An alternate possibility would be to
require students to buy one of the simulation packages such as Interactive
Physics and you could supply suitable templates.  You could also require
VideoPoint and distribute movies for analysis.  I can not recommend World in
Motion because it is impossible to directly compare different graphs of
quantities for different events.  You can create VideoPoint templates that
allow students to use it much like MBL based labs.  There is some research
that claims that video analysis is not as good as MBL labs.

You could also investigate some of the JIT and WebPhysics pedagogy.  While
they may not work as well as some of the other IE methods, it can be
helpful.  Actually the JIT pedagogy could be tested using web based courses.
Since the other engagement aspects are gone, just the immediate feedback of
the homework could be tested.  You can still achieve the Piagetian surprise
element with simulations.  You are missing the interactivity and the social
interaction that Voygotsky and Piaget both said are an important element in
learning.

Of course the students could use a chat program such as instant messenger to
communicate on the side during a class session.  Diagrams and equations
would be impossible.  With instant messenger linking small groups of
students you might be able to use concep questions after all.

I don't know if this helps, but remember eating and doing what you would
like to do are both important, but eating comes first.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX
> Has anyone used "Blackboard" for distance learning?  Has anyone
> used it for
> creating a "virtual classroom"?
>
> My general view on distance learning in physics is that I'm
> against it .   I
> feel strongly that active engagement, hands on, peer instruction
> or learning
> community, learning cycle, model-building approaches are the way
> to go.  But
> I am applying for work now at community colleges and this is not what they
> want to hear.  They are almost all already committed to distance learning
> and they want people who can make it work.  So I am in need of a
> conversion
> experience.