Complementing Traditional Instruction with Asynchronous Learning Networks

JAMES S. JAVENKOSKI

SHELLY J. SCHMIDT

May 1, 2000

Instructors (academic teachers and corporate trainers) face a perpetual challenge of supply and demand: there is always higher demand for their time and resources (intellect, skills, and materials) than they can supply to the learners (students and trainees). Author Schmidt, with author Javenkoski in the background, demonstrates to students in the Food Science and Human Nutrition 101 course how they can, at any time from any location, use a Web browser to access the online course resources that complement the content taught during classroom lectures.

Traditionally, instructors and learners meet in campus classrooms or enterprise conference rooms to share and receive information in a synchronous (same time, same location) course. Revolutionary technological advances in our communication …

Table 1 Comparison of pedagogical attributes that distinguish ALN courses from traditional synchronous (same time, same location) courses

Fig-2 The VCI Administrative Controls contains hyperlinks to HTML forms that instructors use to edit the content of each module

Fig. 3—JavaScript–enabled glossary pop up windows contain definitions to selected terminology presented during lectures

Fig. 4—Java applets embedded at the end of each lecture document deliver streaming audio summaries of the principal topics of that lesson

Fig. 5—Students can view on-demand videos in their browser by clicking on the QuickTime logos displayed in the lecture outlines. A mouse click launches a pop-up window in which the movie is played

Fig. 6—A pop-up video window (enabled by JavaScript) displays an embedded QuickTime movie that begins with a question to help focus the students’ attention on the content. The answer to the question is presented in the video

Fig. 8—Streaming media production prior to the release of the iMac DV platform was a 6-step process requiring approximately 3 hr for each video and 1 hr for each audio file created for the FSHN 101 Web site