Choose Your Media Wisely

I decided to use the audio PowerPoints because streaming video is often much too slow for the bandwidth that most students have. However, I found that many students even have problems streaming these PowerPoints. Therefore before going to Moldova, I burned a CD with the lectures and mailed every student a copy. Therefore, students did not have to stream the video and could easily open and view the lectures. This proved very effective, and few students reported problems. However, a couple of students reported that the CDs that they had received were defective. Mailing out new CDs from Moldova was not time efficient. Therefore, before leaving the States I left a few extra CDs with our Department administrative assistant, and when students reported their problems, I was able to email the administrative assistant to mail out new copies. So, one lesson that I learned is that if you are going to use media that requires some bandwidth, it is very effective to burn the material onto a CD and make sure to leave some extra copies back home.

Problems with Communication

Anyone who has taught a distance education course has learned one important truth: Answering emails and communicating in chatrooms takes an extraordinary amount of time. Emails and the chatroom are the primary method of communication and therefore an extremely important component of any online course. For most instructors of online courses, the problem is constant bombardment with student emails which necessitates a strategy of when and how to answer such emails. However when abroad, especially in a country such as Moldova, the problem is just the opposite. It is often very difficult to access to your email account. This is not necessarily a problem due to the connection in the host country (although in Moldova this was a significant issue), but is often because universities schedule computer maintenance and server shutdowns at night (which is daytime in many foreign locations). This means that there can be days in which you are unable to communicate with your students. This is frustrating for students and, of course, frustrating for faculty who cannot retrieve and answer messages.

The only way to deal with this problem is to make sure upfront that students know that you will not be at the university while teaching the course and that there may be occasions in which you will be incommunicado. Realistically, instructors cannot solve these technologylinked communication problems. All we can do is be honest and clear with students that these problems may arise and that you will attempt to answer them as soon as possible. Checking email remotely is one issue to which faculty should give some thought. Before traveling, make sure that your university offers some form of remote access to their system. I believe that using accounts like Hotmail or Yahoo is a poor substitute due to their limited storage space which causes emails to bounce back with alarming regularity. If students are going to be emailing assignments, make sure that the remote service allows you to view attachments. My University only recently upgraded the remote email software to allow for viewing and downloading attached files. If your university does not allow for this, then students must cut and paste assignments into the body of the email. Finally, before traveling make sure you know how to set-up files and create a listserv in the remote account and generally understand how the account operates. This may seem obvious, but when my University changed the software, one of the features that I did not know about until I was in Moldova was that each time I closed the account my trashcan was emptied. Since there are many times that I need to retrieve a trashed email, this was an unpleasant learning experience for me, and one that I could have avoided had I examined the remote account in more detail.

Be Flexible

Even the most rule-oriented and strict faculty member (of which I would consider myself) learns quickly that distance education requires different rules and degrees of flexibility. The loss of direct contact with students as well as the need to use technology for all assignments means that the relationship between the faculty member and the student is somewhat different. I structure and teach my online course as closely to my traditional class as possible in order to provide the online student the same quality of education and to maintain my expectations and rules. However, because all assignments must be submitted electronically, I have learned to be more flexible on deadlines and to create a more flexible syllabus. When students complain that they received a zero for a submitted assignment, I ask them to re-submit the assignment and double check when the text was created (this is possible by clicking on the properties box of a Word document). In addition, I allow students to take the exams at their leisure so as to avoid schedule conflicts. This becomes even more important when seven or eight time zones removed from the student. I think that academic standards can be set very high while at the same time recognizing the limitations of using technology for communication as well as delivery of assignments and exams. One extra burden that I encountered while abroad is the limitation of using the telephone to clear-up matters. I encourage distance education students to call me at my office to discuss their issues or concerns. However when abroad, the telephone is generally not an efficient or viable method of communication. Therefore, instructors must be even more flexible and understanding of students' concerns given that email and the chatroom are probably the only way of communicating important matters.