Flexibility touted for Internet classrooms
The times, they are a-changing.
Gone are the days when the only means to getting a college degree meant sitting through hours of lectures and poring through textbooks.
Nowadays, much the same can be done with a few mouse clicks.
It’s becoming increasingly common for a student to enroll in college, complete his course work and earn a degree without stepping foot on campus, or even talking face-to-face with an instructor.
Over the past decade, the number of students studying online courses at Allen County Community College has grown steadily, to the point that more students, about 900, study solely online, compared to the 650 or so attending ACCC’s Iola campus this fall.
More than 1,600 students in all will take online courses.
Overseeing it all is Regena Aye, ACCC’s newly appointed dean of online instruction, a position invented by college trustees this fall because of the continued enrollment growth in Internet-based learning. While attendance at ACCC’s Iola campus and the college’s outreach campus in Burlingame both are down this fall, for the first time in at least 10 years, online enrollment still was up 10 percent, according to figures given to trustees last month.
Flexibility is the key to the popularity, Aye said.
Some students may have full-time jobs, Aye said, while others may be limited by the high cost of gasoline from commuting each day. And more than a few take online courses from ACCC in order to build up college credits to graduate from a four-year university.
The flexibility also erases geographical limitations.
Aye pointed to the large number of online students living in Topeka, who otherwise would have to drive about 40 miles to ACCC’s outreach center in Burlingame. Some students are taking online courses while studying abroad as well, Aye said, and there are even students serving overseas in the military in such places as Iraq or Afghanistan.
“The students love the flexibility,” she said.
WHILE AYE is in her first term as ACCC’s dean of online learning, she’s hardly a newcomer to the college — or the concept of computer-based classwork.
The first online courses were offered at ACCC in 2001, which coincided with Aye’s arrival to the college’s Burlingame campus as an adjunct instructor and international student adviser.
But as the number of students taking online courses continued to grow, college administrators quickly determined the need for a program coordinator.
Aye (pronounced “A” as in “ACCC”) was appointed as online learning coordinator in 2004.
Aye, 38, a Burlingame native and ACCC graduate, was excited about the potential.
“It’s nice to be able to work at a college that had done so much for me when I was a student there,” she said.
As dean, Aye’s charge is to continue striving to ensure the online courses offered at ACCC — 179 this fall — can be transferred to four-year universities, much as “traditional” courses will.
The only courses not offered online are “performance” classes, such as band or drama, “although we do have things like music and art appreciation,” Aye noted.
ONLINE COURSES aren’t for everyone, Aye conceded.
“We’ll never completely replace the classroom setting,” she said. “Some students need the face-to-face interaction in order to learn.”
Students interested in online studying are given a pair of tests, the first an initial exam to ensure they have a basic grasp of computer concepts and can do such tasks as downloading files. The second helps determine a student’s personality type. A successful online student must be organized, Aye stressed, and self-motivated in order to complete assignments without a teacher on hand to oversee the work.
“We would like each of our students to have their own computer, but we know of some who may borrow a friend’s or go to the library to do their work,” Aye said.
Likewise, the college encourages students to have high-speed Internet service, although it also is not mandatory.
“It’s just a lot faster and more convenient for the students,” she said.
The college employs a number of classroom tools, such as Web-based discussion boards, for its classroom “talks.”
“There’s also a chat capability if a student needs to work one-on-one with a teacher,” Aye said.
And unlike some online courses, ACCC’s are “asynchronous.” That is, students are not required to gather at their computers at a specific time each day; rather they simply are given deadlines to complete their work.
“Their teachers will let students know when they’re online each day in case individual discussions are needed,” Aye said.
PERHAPS MOST exciting for Aye is that while the online program continues to grow, it is changing rapidly.
“What you see in 10 years may be nothing like what you see today,” she said. “It’s an incredibly exciting time.”
