Chalk and talk

The traditional view of a teacher scribbling on a chalkboard while talking at students has changed in recent years, not only with the advent of net-connected classroom displays and other gadgets but in the sense that educational institutions across the globe are now finding alternative ways to deliver their curriculum, with one of the biggest growth areas being online courses.

Writing in the International Journal of Management in Education from Inderscience Publishers, US researchers explain how the decision to offer online education rather than traditional chalk and talk classes can spring from a number of factors. Time constraints on both professors and students, for instance, access to particular physical locations, and perhaps more particularly, competition from the growing industry of "online education" itself.

While some educators have established a strong presence on the world of online education, including several universities and colleges and even the US Army, with several offering free courses in a wide range of subjects to Internet users everywhere, other institutions have not entered this world of virtual education, not least because of the perceived obstacles in augmenting "chalk and talk" education with online offerings.

There are various systems that should facilitate the augmentation of traditional courses with an online system in the area of Web Enhanced Instruction (WEI) including Blackboard, eCollege, and WebCT.

Now, Brett J. L. Landry of the Graduate School of Management, University of Dallas, Dinah Payne, Department of Management, University of New Orleans, and M. Scott Koger of the IT Division, Western Carolina University have teamed up to provide a template that can remove those obstacles and allow any educational establishment to take up the virtual chalk.

Their template builds on principles suggested in 2005 by Qiyang Chen and James Yao of Montclair State University, New Jersey, for developing what is known technically as an Asynchronous Learning Environment (ALE), but colloquially might be referred to as an online course. The principles emphasize the role of the teacher in terms of planning and coordination of the course as well as advice and evaluation.

Needless to say, such traditional principles have to be adopted to create an effective ALE. Within this framework the team outlines the types of materials and tools, both for delivery, coursework, and assessment that can be used and how these might be implemented most effectively.

"The face of the educational system may be changing to include more innovative and computer driven technological learning tools, but one aim that this paper clearly supports is that the quality of the educational experience should be as high as in more 'traditional' classes," the researchers say. Moreover, the online world is undeniably a powerful tool, but tools alone cannot teach.