A Colloquy on Tom Rocklin's TECHPED Do I Dare? Is It Prudent?

When Technology Editor Tom Rocklin filed his TECHPED column for V10N3 of the Forum, it raised a number of issues for me. Sensible and well-spoken as always, Rocklin's column seemed to me to offer too much refuge to faculty seeking to avoid technology in their teaching no matter what advantages it offered. Indeed, while the Forum has reported on the dark side of technology, it has largely showcased its attractions. Though Tom spends a lot of his time working with technology at Iowa, he seemed awfully resistant to it here, troublingly so. To see if others felt as perplexed by Tom's drift as I did, I sent the column and my interchanges with Tom to a number of members of the Forum's Editorial Advisory Board and a few others with special interest in technology to gather their responses. All of this follows below.

One of the pleasures of editing a publication like the Forum is that sometimes it actually becomes a forum. Too often that happens behind the scenes. For this issue, we've expanded the colloquy and brought it forward for readers to sit in on, indeed, to join if you wish. (Send comments for this colloquy to jrhem@itis.com. They'll be edited and posted as appropriate.)

Read comments by:

• James Rhem, Executive Editor
  
• Ed Neal, Director, Center for Teaching and Learning, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
  
• Marilla Svinicki, Director, Center for Teaching and Learning, University of Texas at Austin
  
• Ed Nuhfer, Director, Center for Teaching and Learning, Colorado University-Denver
  
• David Graf, Executive Director of Technology, Nova Southeastern University (Florida)
  
• Wilbert McKeachie, Professor of Psychology, Emeritus, University of Michigan (author of Teaching Tips)
  
• Judy Greene and Gabriele Bauer - Center for Teaching Effectiveness, University of Delaware

Rhem to Rocklin:

"But that's not the same thing as saying that the Internet is revolutionizing learning. It isn't."

Tom, Tom, Tom . . . I must (respectfully) dissent from your use of the word "learning" here. I think you mean "cognition."

"What the Internet won't change is the nature of human cognition and social interaction-and therefore of learning."

Tom, you see, here's where we disagree: You agree that it is really "cognition" you are talking about, but then you suggest that the Internet won't change the nature of social interaction ("and therefore . . . learning"), but this seems false on its face to me. The Internet, if it has not changed the essential nature of social interaction, has created a new modality for such interaction, a modality which has and does change the kinds of interactions that take place . . and therefore changed learning. When otherwise silent souls speak up and everyone hears/reads them, the dynamic of interaction in that learning environment has changed (for the better, in my view).

"Study after study (see Clark, 1983 for examples) has demonstrated that the medium of instruction has little if any effect on the nature or amount of learning that takes place."

To come back at you this way, I should have a battery of references to more recent work and I don't yet, but 1983? In the pace and sweep of change of which the Internet is the harbinger, 1983 is a 100 years ago. If studies don't yet confirm that having a round-the-clock portal to communicate with fellow students and the faculty member in charge -- i.e. email alone -- hasn't changed the amount and kind of learning fostered in many students that did not reach those same levels via other modes of instruction, I would be shocked. Which is not to say that email is a silver bullet, that it's good for everybody, etc (cf. NTLF V9N6 LEARNING DIARY ."A Face, A Voice" p. 7), but it is a powerful means of communicating, not a stylistic embellishment. It's here, thousands are using it, and it seems impossible on its face that it isn't having an impact if only in terms of the tempo and temporal territory of instruction -- i.e. the presence of this access underscores learning/thinking as around-the-clock activities, the course as an around-the-clock part of the student's reason for being enrolled; such access transports the vital presence of the course outside the classroom and bringing it into the dorm room, the library, or, depending on how wired the student may be, a Palm Pilot or cell phone.

"How can a candidate technology increase the efficiency with which I and my students do what we need to do to promote learning right now?"

Shouldn't this question really be "how could a candidate technology increase the efficiency of what my students and I are trying to do now either by making our current efforts more effective or by allowing us to do things we can't do now??

"Here's why efficiency is so important. Over the long haul, we are not likely to see extravagantly more effort on the part of our students. Neither are we, their teachers, likely to be able to devote a lot more effort to our teaching than we already are. If effort is a relatively fixed quantity, the only route to improved learning is efficiency. "

Indeed, the answer is to work smarter not harder; that's always the answer. But the word "effort" - like the word "efficiency"-- carries with it a tonal barb, a sense not of sweat but of sin. Of course all faculty are putting in a maximum effort now; to suggest anything else would be offensive (however accurate it might be in some cases). To change modes of teaching requires more effort, at least up front; hence, the bed rock of change needs to be a recognition, a faith, a belief, that what's being done now is not as effective as what could be done if it were done a different way . . and that means (in some faculty minds) acknowledging that they could be doing a better job than they are at the moment and for many that is asking a lot.

Beyond all that, I think in courses which have a Web presence and responsibilities to post to that Web site, etc. as well as come to class meetings, students and faculty are, in fact, working harder at teaching and learning than they did before. Technology has a long history of seeming to make things easier while actually making more work. Ask that beloved dinosaur of the 1950s what the washing machine, dryer, sewing machine, vacuum sweeper, etc did for her life?

"If maintaining a web site takes so much time that I can't give students prompt feedback on their work, that web site may not be a good idea.

Isn't this herring a bit red in the light of low maintenance packages like WebCT and Blackboard??

Ed Neal, Director, Center for Teaching and Learning, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill:

I read Tom's piece for the Forum and your questions about it, and I'm afraid I'll have to come down on Tom's side of the fence this time. As a matter of fact, I could have written the same article (and have, in various bits and pieces in my own articles). He is writing from the standpoint of a teacher, and I think that his pragmatic approach to the adoption of technology is the only one that will work. "Gradualism," however, is not a concept that the technology folks find very appealing.

Some thoughts:

1. You suggest that his piece may give too much ammunition to faculty who don't wish to adopt technology, but I feel *very* strongly that there is nothing wrong with allowing faculty the freedom to choose NO technology, especially if they are successful teachers without it. From articles I've read by Steve Gilbert and Steve Ehrmann, I think they would agree with my position--and with Tom's ideas as well.

2. I agree with you that "human learning" is much bigger than "human cognition," but I have not seen any solid evidence that either have been affected by the use of technology (and I follow the research literature very closely).

3. "The Internet, if it has not changed the essential nature of social interaction, it has created a new modality for such interaction, a modality which has and does change the kinds of interactions that take place . . and therefore changed learning. When otherwise silent souls speak up and everyone hears/reads them, the dynamic of interaction in that learning environment has changed (for the better, in my view)."

Modality-shmodality there still ain't no solid evidence of a beneficial effect. By "solid evidence" I mean controlled research studies, not the breathless anecdotal articles that appear in non-refereed journals describing "how much better my teaching is, now that I've found the Lord and am using technology in my classes. Although one might argue that an instructor's opinion should count for something, it is silly to aver that an individual's experience in a particular course (in a particular field, in a particular department, in a particular school, etc.) is sufficient evidence for forcing all teachers to use technology. There are NO respectable research studies that show "the ways the new technologies do empower us to teach in more effective ways than we were practically able to do before their advent." The bitter truth is, we're spending billions on technology in higher education without a shred of evidence that it improves teaching or learning.

4. The blackboard is an interesting example of a teaching technology. Although folks are fond of pointing out that nobody "resisted" the adoption of the blackboard (unlike their resistance to electronic technology), I suggest there are several reasons for its swift adoption (and its persistence--we still use blackboards, but now they're white, and we use colored pens on them, but the technology is basically the same). First, the teachers themselves found blackboards to be useful, since their benefits were obvious (words and pictures that all could see, and a space for student work that all could see). The benefits of much of the new technology are not that apparent, and they are much more time-consuming to prepare and more difficult to use. Second, blackboards were relatively cheap, durable, and easy to use (unlike most new technology). Third, blackboards fit into existing classrooms easily, without major renovations or relocation of the teacher's or students' desks (our Center is trying desperately to prevent the technology people from installing their massive electronic podia smack in front of the classroom). Fourth, both teacher and student could use the blackboard without training.

If you look at Everett Rogers' "Diffusion of Innovations" you'll find a simple explanation for the resistance of faculty to technology (and why the blackboard was never resisted). Rogers describes a number of factors that influence the rate of adoption of any innovation:

Relative Advantage: The degree to which an innovation is perceived as better than the idea it supersedes.

Compatibility: The degree to which an innovation is perceived as consistent with the existing values, past experiences, and needs of potential adopters.

Complexity: The degree to which an innovation is perceived as relatively difficult to understand and to use.

Trialability: The degree to which an innovation may be experimented with on a limited basis.

Observability: The degree to which the results of an innovation are visible to others.

5. "If studies don't yet confirm that having a round-the-clock portal to communicate with fellow students and the faculty member in charge -- i.e. email alone -- hasn't changed the amount and kind of learning fostered in many students that did not reach those same levels via other modes of instruction, I would be shocked. "

It is true that much of the research on "mediated learning" goes back a ways (long before Clark's 1983 publications), but if you check the following web site, you'll find that even the recent research has shown "no significant difference" between technology-based teaching and "traditional" teaching: http://nova.teleeducation.nb.ca/nosignificantdifference/

So you can go ahead and be shocked.

6. "If maintaining a web site takes so much time that I can't give students prompt feedback on their work, that web site may not be a good idea. Isn't this herring a bit red in the light of low maintenance packages like WebCT and Blackboard??"

James, you obviously haven't tried to *use* those so-called "low maintenance packages." They were not designed by teachers, and, like most generic products, they are designed for the lowest common denominator--and the widest possible application. They have features that I would never use and don't have features that I need. Moreover, they're usually set up in such a way that it is very difficult and time-consuming to change anything once it's up on the Web. I've tried to use several of them (including Web CT and Blackboard) and abandoned them--fortunately, we've got a staff member who can help me put my stuff on the web without the aggravation of using the "low maintenance" packages.

In sum, much of what is written about the *possibilities* of the use of technology is simply hyperbole, often lifted directly from the materials supplied by vendors.

Marilla Svinicki, Director, Center for Teaching and Learning, University of Texas at Austin:

Thoughts stimulated by the Rocklin/Rhem exchange

In a sense I agree with Tom to the extent that he is maintaining that the technology itself is not the thing that will revolutionize learning.

I believe it is the instructional design that MUST be done to get the technology to work that will revolutionize learning and make it more efficient and effective. By that I mean that technology forces an instructor to do a lot more thinking about what he or she wants the students to experience because a lot of it has to be laid out beforehand. With just a blackboard, an instructor can depend on his or her own facility with the content and ability to react to the immediate situation. The variety of student responses that could be made to any question is sometimes infinite. To attempt to program all the possible outcomes into an intelligent tutor system has proven to be incredibly difficult. The human instructor, however, comes already equipped with such a capability. On the one hand that's a good thing because it does allow the instructor to adapt to the students in real time, which may allow for more flexibility in student learning. On the other hand, however, some instructors can use this very flexibility as a crutch and feel that there is no need to plan for instruction; that they should just go with the flow. So neither of these positions is totally justified. Instruction will always be better if it is planned, a fact which favors the use of instructional technology and its need for planning. And instruction is best when it can be flexible, a fact which favors the human interaction because it is difficult to make the technology flexible enough.

Now a definite criticism of instructional technology: Just as earlier I said that technology forces planning, now I add that the structure of the technologies available to us constrains our designs. Much has been said about the value of programs like Blackboard and WebCT, but instructors should realize that each of those programs uses a particular model of instruction built into the parts that are offered. The most vexing example is that technology (as it currently is available to the general public) makes giving feedback on free response type items extremely difficult while multiple choice type items are extremely easy. So just as the students' behavior flows to the path of least effort, so too, we, as instructors, might be tempted to design our courses to fit the technology rather than the best instructional model. I think that this particular problem, however, may not last forever because technologies are changing constantly. But I certainly have seen myself modifying my teaching choices because of the constraints of the technology in very subtle ways. Most evil of these is the prevalence of Powerpoint. I grant that the model that underlies this program is very good for the linear presentation of content in a very organized manner. But is that all there is to teaching? No, that represents only one model for teaching. Those of us who like to interact with the students and use student responses in the class are better off with an overhead projector. This is a very subtle influence, but one that we have to be wary of.

I want to disagree with Tom on the point that human cognition is not going to change as a function of technology. I can understand this assertion, but I want to temper it in support of what James has said. I believe that technology can and has changed human cognition. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that technology has allowed instruction to come closer to the realities of human cognition than previous forms of instruction. Human cognition involves making connections; that's a fundamental tenet of the field. But the connections model that most closely fits human thinking patterns is the network model rather than the hierarchy model. Cognition is making multiple connections in many directions simultaneously. The linearity of past instructional technologies like the book or the lecture work against natural human cognition patterns. The possibilities for branching and sidebarring that the newer technologies offer us is much closer to real human cognition patterns. Therefore students can use more natural patterns of behavior if they are allowed to explore rather than follow a strictly linear course through the material. Now, the blackboard itself doesn't force linear thinking; but the way it is used often does. The same holds for a book; books can be read in any order, but they are designed to support a particular order, allegedly to make the concepts clearer, but perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the design makes a certain sequence of connections dominant.

Along the same connections line of thinking, human cognitive connections are multiple, varied and idiosyncratic. Learning is best when the learner can follow his or her own line of thinking by making connections with his or her own prior knowledge. Technology has allowed us to design instructional environments that make this individual path of connections feasible. Without the instructor's preplanned path through the material, the student's natural thought processes are allowed to guide the learning, meaning that it is a more natural learning situation.

There is another type of cognition that I think is revolutionized by technology and the possibilities it offers. This component of cognition is about how we interpret the task that we have to do. This point is along the lines of the efficiency argument that both Tom and James make. But I'd like to add another thread to the discussion. Technology has allowed many fields to shift the students' attention from inappropriate educational goals to goals that are more in line with becoming a professional. I'll just use two examples, but I'm sure each field has some comparable issue. In psychology, the best example of this is in the teaching of statistics. In the old days, the complexity and time involved in carrying out statistical analyses by hand meant that much of the students' effort was focused on being able to calculate a correlation coefficient, for example. Since that was what took the most time, that was what the students assumed the goal of statistics was. But in reality, the goal of statistics is so much more complex than that: it is to use the information from the calculations to make judgments. With the advent of computer based statistics programs, a student can now do in the blink of an eye what it took an hour to do before. This leaves the instructor free to focus on what to do once you have the results of an analysis. Even I find that I am much more willing to explore different approaches to looking at data because the task of calculating the statistic has been eliminated. Just more efficient, you say? No, a totally different way of interpreting the field. The focus is now on the use of the statistic; the statistic itself becomes a tool instead of an end in and of itself. The same change in understanding came with the introduction of word processors to writing. Taking the sting out of revising changes the perspective on what writing is: a process of drafting and revising. The focus shifts to seeing multiple ways of saying something and deciding which is truly the best without worrying about having to retype the whole paper.

Ed Nuhfer, Director, Center for Teaching and Learning, Colorado University-Denver

The emphasis Tom's article centered on technology may be a distraction from the more important point of how do we best use the time of teachers and students to achieve the outcomes we want. Every institution has some phrase in its strategic plan or mission about "people are our most important asset," but I've yet to see a single plan that addresses how wisely or effectively (efficiently???) to use that time. The article has some parallels with a summer 2000 issue of American Educator wherein Gilbert T. Sewall's "Lost in Action" article raises the irreverent "Are time-consuming trivilaizing activities displacing the cultivation of active minds?" It's a fair question, and I'd rather see that developed--my personal bias I'm sure.

I don't agree with Rocklin's apparent view that the Internet will not affect the nature of human cognition and social interaction. I think we have ample evidence that it affects both. There is a recognized "internet culture" which is often portrayed as living so much of life within such constrained limits of the medium that reality itself becomes perceived as the abstraction. It's not so different in that way from the seduction provided by television or (as you know better than most of us) films.

That being said, I think the choice of using an e-medium boils down to judging it within a two-part framework --(1) outcomes we want to achieve (not just content learning, but also students' attitudes, values and stretches toward higher levels of thinking in the sense of Perry's upper stages that do go beyond cognition) and (2) the most effective way to do so (not just with respect to pedagogical exercises but also the kinds of experiences that students will have that involve emotions, physical experiences, etc.) If outcomes we want repeatedly can be effectively achieved through an e-medium within good use of available time, then that probably mandates we need to learn how to use the medium. That's why I learned the medium--it does accomplish some things I want to do that I do repeatedly year after year. Thus the investment of time isn't worth constructing a web-based lesson for a one-time event but is very worthwhile when I will use the lesson and its contents repeatedly in other years I'm reminded of the quote " a beggar can't renounce wealth." Once you know a number of pedagogical tools and approaches, you can renounce those that are second-best choices in a given situation. If you don't know alternatives, you have no choices--thus no wealth to renounce.

I'll leave this with an unusual evaluative criteria--"When you dream of being back in college, where do you go--and how does that feel?" Where it's the good dream, then that's probably the experience one would want to structure for students. I've spent a lot of time in front of computer screens this past decade--and maybe that has been too much time-- none of my dreams with the sense of learning or wisdom or the sacred value of knowledge that had one of these computer screens in it. Clearly for me, even though I use WebCT, Blackboard, FirstClass, the value of a medium remains subordinate to the value of both the message and the messengers involved.

David Graf, Executive Director of Technology, Nova Southeastern University (Florida)

Is Tom on track? Yes. Is there research that backs him up? Well, sort of.

It all boils down to this:

"What the Internet won't change is the nature of human cognition and social interactionand therefore of learning. Study after study (see Clark, 1983 for examples) has demonstrated that the medium of instruction has little if any effect on the nature or amount of learning that takes place.

So, the Internet will, on the one hand, change everything and, on the other hand, change nothing."

Clark has made some fairly strong arguments related to whether technology increases learning, causes learning to occur, or has an affect on learning in any way. His work is rather interesting. On the one hand, he has looked at hundreds of research studies, noting all of the NSD [no significant difference]stuff [cf: http://nova.teleeducation.nb.ca/nosignificantdifference/]. Then again, he theorizes that while technology CAN make a difference in learning, it really boils down to the content and the instructional strategies that are employed that make the difference. And in that regard, I agreed totally with Clark - and Tom, in that technology, by itself doesn't change a thing. We technologists fight this battle all the time. Take for example, my WebCT project. We set out to identify some exemplary online courses. Of 74 nominations last spring, we selected 15 that we deemed exemplary. It wasn't WebCT (a technology tool) that made these courses exemplary. Rather, it was what the designers did with the content and what the instructors did IN the online environment that made them so. Did each of those 15 courses IMPROVE learning? I don't know. Did they make a DIFFERENCE in student learning?

Yes, based on our interviews with students. It wasn't WebCT that made the difference; it was what was done with WebCT as an instructional tool that made the difference.

And then there is this quote from Tom's piece: "We faculty have a lot more experimenting to do before we know as much about how to use the Internet as we do about how to use blackboards." While this is certainly true (indeed, consider the relative infancy of the Internet and such things as WebCT, Learning Space, and even Blackboard), I go even further. We really don't know that much about learning itself. We don't know how the brain works. We don't know, really, how people process information or how information processing differs in this or that situation. So how can we expect to know whether learning via technology occurs, can occur.

The strength of Tom's piece lies in its calling for faculty to think critically about their decision to adopt ANY form of technology. That's always been my last word with faculty.

Wilbert McKeachie, Professor of Psychology, Emeritus, University of Michigan (author of Teaching Tips):

Overall I think Tom makes a number of good points, particularly that the Internet won't change human cognition and social interaction. In the last talk I heard Herb Simon give, he stressed that most learning involves human interactions, not only verbal communication, but non-verbal and the emotional aspects of the relationships between the learner and the teacher.

While some fundamental "laws of learning" won't change, the context makes a big difference and cognition will change as the nature of interactions on the Internet and the kind of knowledge and skills involved becomes part of learners' prior knowledge.

Increasing efficiency is a fine objective but the term tends to shortcut the problem that efficiency for some goals--such as immediate recall may not be efficiency for other goals such as long term memory use, thinking, and motivation.

It is true that we may not see more effort on the part of students, but that probably depends upon the student. Some may be stimulated and excited by technology. There are already great differences in the amount of effort a student puts in for a good teacher who motivates intrinsic interest in learning vs. one who is dull. And there is also more effort when the teacher does a lousy job and the student has to make up for the teacher's inadequacies.

The Time on the Real Task section fails to take account of the need for time for reflection. Walking to the library can be a mindless activity; it may also be a time for reflection or for the incubation that leads to insight.

There is no doubt that administering a quiz in a large class involves lost time because of the administrative details, but if it is done by computer, teachers will need to devote a lot more time to preparation, since the test will presumably be open book--actually that might force teachers to do a better job of preparing tests that go beyond rote memory!

In assessing costs Tom's emphasis is on the costs of the faculty member's time. As in most thinking about teaching and learning, this seems to assume that student time is worthless, or at least not of any value. It may be that technology will save student time since most learning and a lot of the student time in learning is spent outside class.

All in all I liked the article. I think it will stimulate thinking in an area that is often engaged in thoughtlessly. Too many administrators and even some faculty think technology is our salvation without evaluating how it is working. I used a program called Teaching Tools when it was first developed but gave up when it didn't pay off. 'Confer,' the first conferencing program, was developed by a member of my staff at CRLT, and I used it for several years. More recently our university technology group developed a new more advanced program of tools for teaching and I tried it for two semesters. When I asked my teaching assistant, who was completing his doctorate in instructional technology, whether or not we should continue, he said, "No". There were more costs than gains.

This is not to say that the technology is not helpful. It can help. I like the ability to use my e-mail to send and receive communications from my students--but my doctoral student, Richard Velayo, showed that overall e-mail was not efficient unless the teacher actually required participation every week.

It is not true that we learn more efficiently by seeing. It is true that graphic representations can help, and there are some things that must be seen (as was demonstrated by the research when television was the technology that was going to revolutionize higher education), but higher education primarily involves semantic learning, and reading is still the most efficient method to learn concepts. (That doesn't mean that we don't need lectures, discussions, peer learning etc) So much for off the top of the head reactions.

Judy Greene and Gabriele Bauer - Center for Teaching Effectiveness, University of Delaware

Judy Greene

With all due respect to Tom, the tone of his article may simply have the effect of continuing the excuses for faculty to not get up to speed. If I may be blunt: It's time for the whining to stop and for people to get current in their teaching--that includes using current technologies to facilitate learning [Am I sounding like a grump?]. As you know, many of our UD faculty are very sophisticated with technology use and are moving into Internet II, etc. Even though I know some campuses are just getting started, what we need are pieces that move us forward with what can be done and why. Healthy skepticism and debate are always welcome, however, I am not sure Tom's piece encourages anything more than giving the naysayers more fuel for NOT doing their jobs--what faculty in this century need to do.

I am not particularly enamored with "efficiency"; as Tom uses it, I think it may be too simplistic and "business-like" in a way that turns most of our(UD) faculty off completely. I found the focus on the learning issues in the colloquy that's followed both more interesting and more likely to give faculty the rationale they need. These questions about learning are the kinds of questions many of our faculty ask when they are considering adopting a new technology tool. "But will it help my students learn?" and "But I use groups...."

Gabriele Bauer:

I find the article focuses too much on the limitations of using technologies and doesn't extend the much needed conversation on how emerging technologies can and DO facilitate student learning and also provide opportunities for learning that were previously not available. From our on-campus discussions, I would say that whether to use technology as an instructional tool is no longer the issue. The conversation among faculty has shifted to how to provide an effective online learning environment for the students and how to use appropriate technologies to address instructional questions that they are trying to solve.

As a reader, I was puzzled by the author's use of the term "efficiency" - efficiency seems to be only one of the potential advantages of using technologies. For me the main question remains regarding "effectiveness of this online/asynchronous learning environment." I suggest to change the focus from "efficiency" to "opportunities to facilitate student learning." What opportunities for student learning does the online learning environment provide? What makes for an effective online learning environment? What needs to be present in an online environment for learning to occur? For example, Barbara Walvoord's concept of "1st exposure" is an example of how technology can assist learning - e.g., students may use videotaped lectures, or a Website to receive information about a content area, they take notes, try to understand the content on their own first, outside of class. Then time in-class can be used to work with the content, to discuss it, explore it under guidance of the faculty member and through informed discussions with peers.

The author's analogy of blackboard use and the Internet use doesn't work for me. I perceive both as somewhat different media, one much more limiting than the other. Also, blackboard use doesn't allow for faculty and student creativity to develop and shine - the Internet fosters creativity. I find the ending of the article, discussion of blackboard and the Internet, doesn't add anything to the discussion and tends to trivialize it.

Given the audience for NTLF (both seasoned and novice users of technology) - both can benefit from a discussion on how online teaching facilitates student learning in ways that are similar to/different from traditional teaching approaches. Reading Craig Nelson's article reminded me that I have seen little written about how faculty need to adjust or align those teaching skills that made them effective in a traditional teaching setting to an online environment. In other words, what teaching and facilitation/moderation skills are needed in an online environment to make for effective instruction? As Collison et al point out, [NTLF V10N3] communication skills, among others, are critical. Another valuable question to consider is: how can we design and execute online instruction to implement the 7 principles of best practice? Another area that is hinted at in the article but that warrants further discussion are learning modalities and how the Internet provides learning environments for diverse learners.