Teaching When Last Term’s Class Material Just Won’t Cut IT Anymore

1. Teaching When Last Term’s ClassMaterial Just Won’t Cut IT Anymore Richard Halstead-Nussloch and Frank Tsui School of Computing and Software Engineering Southern Polytechnic State University

2. Our Current Environment at SPSU • A large number of students are working in or have worked in the IT industry and come with beliefs about growth areas • A large number of students are “transitioning” from other disciplines, seeking the high growth IT areas • The program currently includes BS and MS degrees where the emphasis is on course work

3. Our Perception of Relative Changes and Growth in Computing Applications & Information Technology Information Growth Theoretical Foundations & Computer Science recent 10 years

4. Recent Information Technology Growth • Applications • Enterprise Management: ERP -SAP, PeopleSoft, etc. • Industry Specific :Banking;Health;Manufacturing; etc. • Office : MS Word, Power Point, Spreadsheet, etc. • Network and Communications • Corporate networks: private information exchanges • Internet : public information exchanges • mail • portals • searches • ordering, purchasing, billing, etc. • “training & education” • Mobile, personal devices, etc.

5. Modest Growth in Computer Science • Fairly “Stable” Areas: • Operating System : UNIX, LINUX; MS family • Database : Relational, OO based • Programming Languages • Theory of Computation • Artificial Intelligence • Less “Stable” Areas: • Software Engineering Methodologies and Processes • Software Development Tools and Environment • User Interface

6. Problems Posed • Constant need to update the class content • increased work load on course “maintenance” • Rapid content growth • the need for several “books”and the resulting increase in students’ cost • not enough time to cover the material within the allotted class periods • difficult to assess which technologies/ideas are truly worthwhile and long lasting

7. Potential Solutions • Instructor Focused: • Focus on more “stable” areas and leave high growth areas to commercial training. • Limit the offered topics within a course to a small set, allowing growth only within the available resources. • Teacher-Student Shared Focus: • Place some of the “educational” responsibilities on the students • Provide the “access” to the learning material in a more encompassing way.

8. Providing More Encompassing Access to Learning • “Common” presentation tools such as MS Power Point used in classroom presentations • Diskette and CD used as media for information storage and exchange • Taking advantage of internet and Web: • e-mail • bulletin board and net-meeting • web based class material (in power point, etc.) • web searches • delivery of lecture (streaming video) • Experiment with new multi-media tools

9. Our Experiences • We are experimenting with both synchronous and asynchronous mode of education utilizing IT tools • Teaching HTML skills outside of classroom, stand-up lectures ( a form of “outsourcing”) • Remote Teaching utilizing GSAMS and other Distance Technologies • International Distance Learning via NetMeeting and Phone • Web enabled class lecture material

10. HTML Experience • Chose HTML as a tool for web page development (1998 - time frame) to accompany a user interface design course. • The UI Design course was a graduate level course where the design principles, design techniques, design evaluation, etc. were taught. • Hands on experience would be invaluable , but there was a lack of time to include the training of HTML. • PSINet/Metamor’s HTML e-learning tutorial on the web (24x7 availability) was used as an experiment • streaming video • only required 28.8 modem

11. HTML Experience (cont.) • Volunteers from two graduate courses in UI design were elicited. • 13 students volunteered to participate • 10 weeks period • motivated to learn because intermediate level knowledge of HTML needed to perform a class project • Interested in 2 major questions: • Do students learn on their own, asynchronously? • How do the students “feel” about this mode of education?

12. Do students learn on their own, Asynchronously? (HTML cont.) • Pre-post test composed of 14 multiple questions was given to the students. • Mean improvement of 2.15 more correct answers on the post test with standard deviation of 2.38. • t-test on the difference scores had a value of 3.25 with 12 degree of freedom • t-test is statistically significant at .01 level • Weekly time log was filled to record study time • those with more study time (more than 10 hours) applied showed marked difference (mean difference in score of 2 in improvement) • Results indicate that significant knowledge improvement can be attained when student learn HTML on their own

13. How Do Students “feel” About This Mode of Education? (HTML cont.) • Several system problem questions showed that there were no significant downtime to negatively influence their experience (mean network related problems was 3.2 times during the 10 week) • More than half of the participants responded that they felt the web based course was more convenient than a textbook based course. • Approximately 40% felt that the web course was sufficient • Approximately 60% felt that an accompanying text would be beneficial • 0% felt that an accompanying instructor is needed

14. HTML Experience (cont.) • Good Experience with web based streaming video course • Believe that self contained and well defined technology related subject may be “out- sourced” to students this way • reallocate class time and resource • reasonably priced • commercial establishments • books • maintained and frequently updated by the commercial establishments, independent of “class” cycle. • Must choose a reputable and large “vendor” or mass marketed book

15. Computer Supported Collaborative Work Matrix Location Different Same Time Same - GSAM -NetMeeting - GSAM -NetMeeting - GSAM (tape) - GSAM (tape) Different

16. GSAM Experience • Instructor stand-up class presentation broadcasted to remote facilities and taped. • Provides access to classes from distant, remote sites • The tapes are available afterwards for asynchronous review • The class material and delivery was not necessarily geared to asynchronous learning mode • no anticipated “frequently asked questions’ • no exercises and immediate results feedback for students • Updates and modification of material may require “re-taping” of the class material and/or wait for the next offering of the class

17. International Distance Education Utilizing NetMeeting and Phone HS Harz in Germany Internet MS NetMeeting : -chat -video -file transfer -share programs -whiteboard SPSU in Atlanta MS NetMeeting : -chat -video -file transfer -share programs -whiteboard

18. International Distance Education Utilizing NetMeeting and Phone (cont.) • Goal: Test the feasibility of GSAM level interactive video via NetMeeting • synchronous but remote/different locations • instructor at SPSU • students at HS Harz in Wenegerode, Germany • computer logic/architecture simulator application shared by the classes. • Result • NetMeeting was sufficient on the backbone network within Germany • Too slow and unreliable across the internet • switched to international phone call for audio • continued to run application simulator and shared results via the internet • Administrative organizational/policy differences lag behind the technology solutions

19. Web Enhanced Class Lectures • Delivery of standup class with web “enhanced” material (power point slides level material) • posted material are available via the web, 24 x 7, for any asynchronous study • posted material may be “updated” any time (even during the lecture) • links to other information sources can also be easily provided and allow instant updates of highly volatile information which is often the case with technology • An accompanying “discussion room” is also made available for “threads” of question/answer, for multiple participants, etc.

20. Web Enhanced Class Lectures (cont.) • Relatively easy to implement with existing internet infrastructure • posting the material (e.g. utilizing FrontPage) • Accessing the material via the web • Is it really beneficial and how do the students feel about them ?

21. Web Enhanced Class Lectures (cont.) • Surveyed 3 sets of students on Web enabled lectures • all graduate classes in the School of Computing and Software Engineering (total of 42 students) • 9 students; 14 students; 19 students • More than half of the students in these classes have had industry experiences in IT or are currently working in IT. • Many have full-time employment commitments, may get delayed in traffic, or miss complete lectures due to work needs

22. Web Enhanced Class Lectures (cont.) • Some Student Opinion (Response to Questionnaire) • Do you visit the lecture note web site ? • Never : 2% • Sometimes (twice a week) : 64% • Frequently (> twice a week) : 34% • Does having the class lectures notes on the web have any value to you ? • No : 0 % • Very little : 0 % • Somewhat : 4% • Helpful : 48% • Very Valuable : 48%

23. Web Enhanced Class Lectures (cont.) • Some Student Opinion (Response to Questionnaire) • Do you find any value in having both a textbook and the lecture notes? • Duplicating : 7% • Somewhat valuable : 19% • Enhancing each other : 55% • Very complementing : 19% • With the web lecture notes, how valuable is the actual lecture ? • No need : 0% • Somewhat valuable : 14% • Need instructor contact : 33% • Very necessary : 53%

24. Web Enhanced Class Lectures (cont.) • Some Student Opinion (Response to Questionnaire) • Would you take this course if it had only the web lecture notes, a textbook along with a web discussion thread facility, but no in class instructor lecture ? • Yes : 26% • No : 74% • Would you take this course if it had web lectures notes, a textbook, a web discussion thread facility, and streaming video lecture instead of class instructor lecture? • Yes : 43% • No : 57%

25. Web Enhanced Class Lectures (cont.) • From the responses to the questionnaire students are saying: • web lectures are valuable • they visit the web sites often • instructor lead lectures are still important • however close to half of the students would take the course if the instructor is replaced by “streaming video” • the old model of education by in-class professor lecture only is obsolete in today’s IT.

26. Our Experiences To-Date • Streaming Video lessons which has built in exercises seem to be acceptable and positive to students as an alternative to stand-up in class lectures. • Web based lecture notes allows the “quick” update and dissemination of frequently changing areas. Students seem to find value add in web based lectures notes • Have not found GSAM to be a very easy platform to handle frequent information updates even though it may be a good distance bridging platform. • NetMeeting and Phonecombination provide a potentially, economically attractive alternative mechanism for bridging the distance.