Abstract:

This presentation examines and discusses the "lessons learned from 20 years of online teaching and development," and in particular I shall look at how online teaching and learning has developed at the California State University (CSU) system, the largest university system in the United States. In 1997, when I developed and taught my first online course as a newly hired assistant professor at CSU-Northridge (Los Angeles), I was one of the few professors who were involved in online teaching. At that time, aside from providing academic content, we also had to learn HTML coding to create webpages, learn to use file-transfer protocols (FTPs) to update and manage webpages, use dedicated servers, use Java Scripts for online discussions, and do everything else involved in online teaching. I gave workshops and seminars to other faculty on the development of online teaching. I helped develop and teach a new B.A. program in Education that gave students a teaching credential and that also incorporated online learning as a major component of the program. All of this also meant working closely with university computer staff to manage our servers, and learn what the latest tools and best practices were in online teaching and learning. Eventually, dedicated commercial platforms were developed that did all the behind-scene work and webpage management.

Today, faculty no longer have to learn any of the high-end web development knowledge and skills that I acquired in order to develop and teach an online course. Indeed, today most faculty have no idea of what happens at the HTML coding level, web development, and the management of servers. Instead, professors are now end-users: the university purchased a commercial online learning product and hired a staff to teach professors and students how to use those products. Today, online teaching and learning is big business and is heavily incorporated into our university courses; furthermore, there is now a huge support staff for instructors and students who use online courses; and nearly every student at the university will have participated in taking an online course.

This presentation will:
(a) show examples of the early models of online courses,
(b) the content used in those early webpages,
(c) the websites I developed and the tools we had to acquire to create an online course.

And I shall also examine and discuss (d) how online teaching and learning have evolved to what we have today in commercial platforms, such as, WebCT, SacCT and Canvas.

Finally, I shall share some of the important lessons I learned as an early developer and pioneer in teaching online courses. In sum, while some of the problems in the early days of online teaching in the mid-1990s have been alleviated, unfortunately, many of the same problems remain today.

Keywords:

Online Course Development, Best Practices, Undergraduate Education, California State University.